Eli Lake, Columnist

Trump's Envoy Was Not Wrong on Israeli Settlements

"I think the settlements are part of Israel." That's correct when it comes to most Jewish population centers in the West Bank.

October 3, 2017 at 9:00 AM UTC

By Eli Lake

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

The new U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman.
Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty Images

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Last week, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, was widely thought to have stepped in it.

In his first televised interview he said: "I think the settlements are part of Israel." He said that Israeli settlements comprise two percent of the West Bank's territory. Explaining U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, adopted after Israel won the six-day war, Friedman said, "The existing borders, the 1967 borders were viewed by everybody as not secure. So Israel would retain a meaningful portion of the West Bank -- and it would return that which it didn't need for, you know, peace and security."