Telegraph misrepresents US position on Israeli settlements

Unlike the EU, the US does not characterize the settlements as "illegal". Rather, since the early 80s, they've been characterizing them as "illegitimate", but not "illegal" - a fact noted at the Telegraph in previous reports.

An article in the Daily Telegraph (Donald Trump hunts for votes in the occupied West Bank, Sept. 18th) included the following paragraphs:

telegraph-settlements

However, unlike the EU, the US does not characterize the settlements as “illegal”.  Rather, since the early 80s, the US has been characterizing them as “illegitimate”, but not “illegal” – a fact noted at the Telegraph in previous reports.

In fact, only a few days ago, The Telegraph published an AP story on the new US aid deal to Israel which included the following passage:

The Palestinians have demanded that construction stop before restarting peace talks, and the US considers the settlements illegitimate.

In 2013, the New York Times issued a correction to their initial false characterization of the US position, correctly noting that Washington has taken no position on the ‘legality’ of the settlements.

Earlier today, we tweeted the Telegraph journalist responsible for the report, Raf Sanchez:

We also were in touch with Telegraph editors regarding the error and will update this post when we’ve received a reply. 

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