Mike Pompeo claims Israel has Biblical right to occupied Palestinian territories​​

Washington, February 18 (RHC)-- Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has dismissed the fact that Israel is an occupying entity, claiming that the regime has a Biblical right to the Palestinian land.

In an interview with the "One Decision" podcast about his time in office under former President Donald Trump and serving as head of the CIA, Pompeo claimed that the Palestinian territories are the rightful homeland of the Jewish people.

“[Israel] is not an occupying nation.  This land, as an evangelical Christian, I am convinced from my reading of the Bible that 3,000 years onto now, in spite of the denial of so many, is the rightful homeland of the Jewish people,” Pompeo said in the interview.

One of the leading American Christian politicians touted to run as the next Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential elections, Pompeo censured the administration of former president Barack Obama for negotiating with the Palestinian Authority’s president Mahmoud Abbas, who he referred to by his nickname Abu Mazen.

“Our theory of the case was this – what is in America’s best interest? Is it to sit and wait for Abu Mazen, a known terrorist who’s killed lots and lots of people, including Americans ...? We said that’s just not in America’s best interest.” he said.

During his term, Pompeo played an instrumental role in an administration that recognized occupied al-Quds as Israel’s capital and moved the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv.  Also in the podcast, Pompeo rejected supporting a two-state solution, saying: “I’m for an outcome that guarantees Israeli security and makes life better for everyone in the region.”

The former state secretary, in his interview, used the so-called biblical names of the region often used by Israelis to refer to the illegally occupied territory, referring to the West Bank as “Judea and Samaria.”

For many Republican voters who are Christian, support for the Israeli regime is a key factor in how they vote in U.S. elections.  According to a 2017 survey by LifeWay Research, a Christian polling group, 80% of U.S. evangelicals believe the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948 – largely through terrorism and ethnic cleansing – was a fulfillment of biblical prophecy that would hasten the second coming of Jesus Christ.