Palestinian Authority (PA) cabinet leader Mohammed Shtayyeh on Friday warned against the planned visit by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to an Israeli community in Judea and Samaria, claiming it would set a "dangerous precedent".
Shtayyeh was responding to a report in Axios which said Pompeo would become the first US Secretary of State to visit a community in Judea and Samaria.
The visit planned for next week is a way to "legitimize the settlements" and creates "a dangerous precedent that violates international law", Shtayyeh said, according to AFP.
Pompeo is expected to visit the winery in Psagot, which has rolled out a label named after him in tribute to his visit, Thursday’s report.
However, the State Department has not confirmed Pompeo's itinerary and would only say in a statement earlier this week that the Secretary of State would visit Israel and meet with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Last November, Pompeo annulled a State Department legal opinion from 1978 which deemed that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria are “inconsistent with international law."
The PA’s relationship with the Trump administration has been strenuous. PA leaders have rejected Trump's peace proposal outright, and dismiss the idea that his administration could mediate impartially on this issue.
The PA has been boycotting the administration since 2017, when Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The PA demands that eastern Jerusalem be the capital of a future Palestinian state.
In another move that enraged the PA, Washington cut aid to the PA for programs supporting conflict resolution with Israelis.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)