U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller confirmed on Monday that the United States would be freezing scientific and technological cooperation with Israeli entities in areas over the 1949 armistice line, i.e. in Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights and parts of Jerusalem.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman took to Twitter following the news of the freeze, saying: “Make no mistake. The United States, by this action, is embracing the BDS movement, violating a binding bilateral agreement with Israel, and creating a lose/lose dynamic whereby the people of the region—Israelis and Palestinians—will lose the most.”

In October 2020, Friedman, under the direction of then-President Donald Trump, participated in a signing ceremony at Ariel University in Samaria with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, extending bilateral agreements between Israel and the United States to include Israeli institutions over the so-called Green Line, immediately expanding scientific and academic cooperation.

When asked by a reporter at Monday’s press briefing in Washington about the decision to reverse the Trump administration directive that had permitted such cooperation in all parts of the country, Miller stated:

“The United States strongly values scientific and technological cooperation with Israel, and robust scientific and technological cooperation with Israel continues. The State Department recently circulated foreign policy guidance to relevant agencies in the United States government, advising that engaging in bilateral scientific and technological cooperation with Israel in geographic areas which came under the administration of Israel after 1967 and which remain subject to final-status negotiations is inconsistent with U.S. foreign policy.”

Miller clarified that the policy guidance “is reflective of the longstanding U.S. position, going back decades—reaffirmed by this administration—that the ultimate disposition of the geographic areas which came under the administration of Israel after 1967 is a final-status matter. Essentially, we are reverting to U.S. policy, to longstanding pre-2020 geographic limitations on U.S. support for activities in those areas, a policy that goes back decades, as I stated.”

The Trump administration decision specifically allowed for joint development projects to be pursued in all of Israel, including those of the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD), the U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) and the U.S.-Israel Binational Agricultural Research and Development Foundation (BARD), which until then couldn’t be conducted in areas that “came under the administration of the government of the State of Israel after June 5, 1967, and may not relate to subjects pertinent to such areas.”

The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem told JNS that it would defer to its colleagues in Washington regarding this issue.

Violating treaties

Professor Eugene Kontorovich, director of international law at the Jerusalem-based Kohelet Policy Forum, told JNS:

“The United States has signed international agreements with Israel providing that joint scientific grant institutions can issue grants even to research institutions across the Green Line.”

According to Kontorovich, “[President Joe] Biden is unilaterally violating those treaties while also impermissibly and explicitly politicizing scientific research and seeking to have independent grant-making bodies impermissibly adhere to his ‘foreign policy considerations.’

“Moreover, the new guidance seems to go even further by banning funding to areas like the Golan and Jerusalem that the U.S. recognizes as Israeli. It is thus a step in the de facto de-recognition of Jerusalem, without incurring the political price,” Kontorovich added.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) issued what may have been the harshest response to the suspension of joint scientific research, saying he will do all that he can to reverse this decision and “such antisemitic discrimination by the U.S. government in the future.”

Image - U.S. Embassy in Israel