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Speaker Mike Johnson visits occupied West Bank to support Israeli settlers

Mike Johnson became the highest ranked US official to visit the occupied West Bank on Monday, the Republican House speaker drawing measures of praise and condemnation for his trip in support of Israeli settlements amid a worsening starvation crisis in Gaza.

The excursion followed Johnson’s arrival in Israel on Sunday on an unannounced visit with other Republican lawmakers, and his meeting with Israeli defense minister Israel Katz and foreign minister Gideon Saar.

Johnson’s visit to the West Bank is the highest profile by a senior US political figure since then secretary of state Mike Pompeo went to Psogat in November 2020 during the final months of Donald Trump’s first presidency.

It is a private trip hosted by a pro-Israel advocacy group, an Axios report said, and not an official congressional delegation. The outlet said Johnson traveled with fellow Republican representatives Michael McCaul, Nathaniel Moran and Michael Cloud of Texas, and Claudia Tenney of New York.

Johnson told Israeli settlers on Monday that Israel was the “rightful owner” of the contested Palestinian territory, according to a report published on the pro-Palestinian website Common Dreams, and separately, Marc Zell, the chair of Republicans Overseas Israel.

Common Dreams quoted Johnson as saying that “the mountains of Judea and Samaria are the rightful property of the Jewish people” and that the territory was at “the front line of the state of Israel, and must remain an integral part of it”.

“Even if the world thinks otherwise, we stand with you,” he reportedly added, an apparent reference to recent proclamations by France and the UK that they would recognize a Palestinian state if Israel did not commit to a ceasefire in Gaza.

His visit was immediately condemned by the Palestinian foreign ministry, which issued a statement calling Israel’s annexation of the West Bank a “blatant violation of international law”.

Johnson’s stance in support of the settlers, it said, “undermines Arab and American efforts to stop the war and [the] cycle of violence, while flagrantly contradicting the declared US position on settlements and settler violence”.

According to a post on X by Zell, Johnson also said the US should use the 250th anniversary of its independence next year “to remind the American people of its Judeo-Christian foundations that were formed here in the land of Israel”.

Johnson’s trip comes as pressure builds on Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the growing hunger crisis in Gaza, which some critics have called a genocide orchestrated by Israel.

It also comes shortly after a Palestinian American from Florida was killed in the West Bank by Israeli settlers while visiting family. The Trump-appointed ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, called the killing a “terrorist attack”.

Johnson is expected to meet Netanyahu before returning to the US on Sunday.

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