Friday at the White House press briefing when questioned by Fox News Channel’s chief White House correspondent Ed Henry, press secretary Josh Earnest refused to deny recent reports about classified meeting between the State Department and the White House where discussions reportedly took place about of the possibly of sanctioning Israel over recent settlements.
Earnest said, “I’m not going to talk about any sort of internal deliberations inside the administration and certainly not inside the White House.”
He added when pushed, “I’m not willing to talk about those kinds of conversations.”
“We believe settlements are illegitimate,” he continued, “and we have deep concerns about highly contentious planning and construction activities that the Israeli government is pursuing in east Jerusalem and the West Bank. We believe those settlements are counterproductive.”
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