Israel approves new West Bank settlement project
JERUSALEM
Israel’s far-right finance minister announced a contentious new settlement construction in the occupied West Bank on Aug. 14 which Palestinians and rights groups worry will scuttle plans for a future Palestinian state by effectively cutting the West Bank into two separate parts.
The announcement comes as many countries said they would recognize a Palestinian state in September.
“This reality finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state, because there is nothing to recognize and no one to recognize,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said.
“Anyone in the world who tries today to recognize a Palestinian state – will receive an answer from us on the ground,” the Israeli minister said.
Development in E1, an open tract of land east of Jerusalem, has been under consideration for more than two decades, but was frozen due to U.S. pressure during previous administrations.
On Aug. 14, Smotrich praised U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee as “true friends of Israel as we have never had before.”
The E1 plan has not yet received its final approval, which is expected next week.
The plan includes around 3,500 apartments to expand the settlement of Maale Adumim, Smotrich said.
While some bureaucratic steps remain, if the process moves quickly, infrastructure work could begin in the next few months and construction of homes could start in around a year.
Rights groups swiftly condemned the plan. Peace Now called it “deadly for the future of Israel and for any chance of achieving a peaceful two-state solution” which is “guaranteeing many more years of bloodshed.”
Three-quarters of U.N. members have already or soon plan to recognize Palestinian statehood, with Australia becoming the latest to promise it will at the U.N. General Assembly in September.
The Israel-Hamas war, raging in Gaza since the Palestinian militant group’s attack on Oct. 7, 2023, has revived a global push for Palestinians to be given a state of their own.
The action breaks with a long-held view that Palestinians could only gain statehood as part of a negotiated peace with Israel.
The announcement comes as the Palestinian Authority and Arab countries condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement in an interview this week that he was “very” attached to the vision of a Greater Israel.
He did not elaborate, but supporters of the idea believe that Israel should control not only the occupied West Bank but parts of Arab countries such as Egypt and Jordan.
In an advisory opinion last year, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
