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Democrats plan legislative response to Trump’s new Israeli settlement policy

House Democratic leaders vow to vote on a resolution backing a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after the Donald Trump administration’s new settlement policy.
U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) speaks flanked by Rep Eliot Engel (L) (D-NY) and other Democratic members of Congress as they call on Senate Republicans to take up gun violence legislation already passed by the House requiring background checks on all firearm sales at an event on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. August 13, 2019.  REUTERS/Leah Millis - RC1CE886F320

The Donald Trump administration’s reversal of the decades-old US position that Israeli settlements in the West Bank violate international law has prompted Democratic leaders to coalesce around a resolution reaffirming support for a two-state solution despite their previous attempts to slow-walk the legislation.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told Al-Monitor today that he expects to put the resolution on the floor “before the end of the year.” Hoyer’s announcement comes the day after the State Department scratched a 1978 legal opinion deeming Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law.

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