Trump recognizes Israel claims in West Bank and East Jerusalem

US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, has set a cat among the pigeons with his claim that:

Under certain circumstances I think Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank.

Friedman clearly was speaking for the Trump administration – not just himself personally - when he continued:

We really don't have a view until we understand how much, on what terms, why does it make sense, why is it good for Israel, why is it good for the region, why does it not create more problems than it solves. These are all things that we'd want to understand, and I don't want to prejudge.

Friedman accused the Obama administration – which in the last month of Obama's Presidency - allowed passage of a United Nations resolution in December 2016 condemning Israeli settlements as a "flagrant violation" of international law, of giving credence to Palestinian Arab arguments "that the entire West Bank and East Jerusalem belong to them".

Friedman asserted:

Certainly Israel's entitled to retain some portion of it.

Friedman was spot on.

The right of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in at least some parts of the West Bank and East Jerusalem was recognised by:

• the 1920 San Remo Conference
• the 1920 Treaty of Sevres,
• articles 6 and 25 of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (Mandate) and
• article 80 of the 1945 United Nations Charter

Friedman's criticism of the United Nations attempt to subvert the Jewish peoples' legal rights created under the Mandate and preserved under the United Nations own Charter to "close settlement by Jews on the land including State lands and waste land not required for public purposes" located in the West Bank and East Jerusalem – was justified and long overdue..

Friedman postulated: