Sen. Angus King and Rep. Chellie Pingree speak for many of your readers in calling for the end of U.S. support for Israel. King calls for that support to be withheld “… as long as there are starving children in Gaza due to the action or inaction of the Israeli government.” Pingree says it is a matter of “justice, human rights and self-determination” in calling for American recognition of a Palestinian state. Both stress the importance of the two-state solution.

In a recent BBC broadcast, the former director general of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated, “The overall goal of the Israeli government is to destroy the two-state solution.” On Israel’s announcement that it intended to establish 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, Israel’s Peace Now stated, “The Israeli government no longer pretends otherwise: the annexation of the occupied territories and expansion of settlements is its central goal.”

The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power moving its population into occupied territory, as Israel has done in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967. It has established 160 settlements resulting in up to 700,000 illegal settlers and a “Swiss cheese” of illegal settlements and outposts designed to disrupt creation of a Palestinian state. The International Court of Justice has condemned the settlements as being established and maintained in violation of international law and seeks their removal.

Sen. King should expand his boycott to be in effect so long as Israeli settlement activity undercuts the American foreign policy of a two-state solution.

John Wuesthoff
Portland