Envoy:

US may review ties with nations deemed anti-Israel

The United States is making a shift in policy toward equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism and may review its ties with countries it deems as being anti-Israel.

News ID: 444755

Date: 08 May 2019 - 04:04

RNA - The US State Department's Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, Elan Carr, said Sunday that Washington’s position on anti-Zionism could affect ties with foreign governments or leaders.

"The United States is willing to review its relationship with any country, and certainly anti-Semitism on the part of a country with whom we have relations is a deep concern," he told Reuters during a visit to Israel.

"I will be raising that issue in bilateral meetings that I am undertaking all over the world," he said. "That is something we are going to have frank and candid conversations about - behind closed doors."

Carr declined to cite specific countries or leaders, or to elaborate on what actions the Trump administration might take.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed in a speech in March that anti-Zionism was a form of anti-Semitism, or hostility toward Jews, that was on the rise worldwide and that Washington would "fight it relentlessly."

Some US political analysts say that the administration of President Donald Trump hope support for Israel will attract Jewish and Christian Zionist voters.

Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian voices have grown within progressive Democratic Party circles.

Critics have blamed Trump’s confrontational, nationalistic rhetoric with encouraging right-wing extremists and fueling a surge in activity by American hate groups.

The announcement on anti-Semitism was the latest in a flurry of decisions by the Trump administration in support of Israel.

From moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem al-Quds, to announcing Israel’s sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, Trump has embraced a position that critics say would all but extinguish Washington’s so-called peace plan for Palestine and and Israel.

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