ISRAEL USES WASHINGTON SUPPORT TO BUILD MORE SETTLEMENTS
▶ New data shows that government tenders and approved plans have surged under the pro-Israel president
Israel has dramatically increased its illegal settlement building and plans for future houses in the West Bank since US President Donald Trump entered the Oval Office.
The building splurge constitutes a serious blow to a future sovereign Palestinian state.
Figures collected by the Israeli anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now – from official government records and seen by
The National – show Israel’s hardline government approved thousands more tenders for settlement building in the first two years of the Trump presidency than in those prior to his election victory.
The numbers suggest that Israel’s intention is to build as much as possible and as quickly as it can while a US administration that refuses to oppose its settlement enterprise, deemed illegal under international law, is in power.
It is a push that appears aimed at preventing an end to its occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, one that further dents any hope of a political settlement to the decades-long conflict.
The figures show a significant rise in new settlement construction, with the first nine months of last year representing a 20 per cent increase on building in 2017.
More startling for the Palestinians is that Israeli government tenders for settlement building – government proposals issued for the construction of housing units – shot to their highest levels on record.
In 2016, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government issued 42 tenders for construction. That was the last year of former US president Barack Obama’s administration, considered hostile to Israel’s hardright policies.
Eight years of pressure from the Democrat president and close allies such as John Kerry, who was secretary of state at the time, forced Israel to slow its settlement construction.
But a year later, with Mr Trump in power, those tenders rose to 3,154. Last year, the tenders shot up again to 3,808, the highest yet.
“From this data we have deduced that the Israeli government has for a second year supported a dramatically higher rate of settlement growth, due to domestic reasons and because of the unwillingness of the US administration to deter settlement expansion,” Brian Reeves, director of external relations at Peace Now, told The National.
The expansion of settlement tenders means Palestinians can expect years of accelerated settlement building as the process moves from planning to construction, at a time when hopes of peace have never been lower.
More than 400,000 Jewish settlers live in outposts dotted around the West Bank, a network the Palestinians say is aimed at preventing a contiguous Palestinian state and potentially the eventual annexation of territory right-wing nationalist Israelis consider to be their home.
Much of the building takes place in Area C of the West Bank, which is under full Israeli control and represents about 60 per cent of the territory.
About 150,000 more live in occupied East Jerusalem, the area of the contested city the Palestinians seek as the capital of any future sovereign state.
It hosts some of the most revered places of worship for Christians, Jews and Muslims, including the Haram Al Sharif, otherwise known as the
Noble Sanctuary. Israel seized both territories from Jordan in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and has maintained an occupation of both that is reviled throughout the Arab world.
Settler populations are likely to grow even further with plans for more than 12,000 units advanced in 2017 and 2018, according to the Peace Now figures, almost triple the number advanced in the two years prior to Mr Trump’s election victory.
The lack of opposition from the White House made Israel move quickly. It approved its first new settlement for two decades and embarked on a series of new announcements for settlement units.
In his first two years as president, Mr Trump has courted Israel and disregarded the Palestinians, making moves that officials in Ramallah say were aimed at changing the status quo in favour of Israel. A much-vaunted peace plan has so far failed to materialise.
The Palestinians say they will reject it anyway, as they believe the plan will include proposals they could never accept, such as a confederation with Jordan, naming Abu Dis as the capital of Palestine and operating without the functions of a sovereign nation.
Mr Trump made little effort to build trust with Palestine. In building his Middle East team, he named his former bankruptcy lawyer David Friedman as US ambassador to Israel.
Mr Friedman helped to fund projects in the hardline West Bank settlement Beit El, lobbied for the US to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and referred to Jews opposed to Israeli policies as “kapos”, or traitors.
Mr Trump also picked his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as the man to strike the “ultimate deal”. But his family has funded settlements in the West Bank and is deeply pro-Israel.
Every step he has taken, from ending funding for Palestinian refugees and sick residents in East Jerusalem, to boycotting Unesco and the UN Human Rights Council over pro-Palestinian decisions, has deepened the feeling in Ramallah that the Trump administration will never be the impartial mediator the Palestinians seek.