Israel settlement saps peace hopes
MIDDLE EAST: It seems an unlikely new front in the longrunning Israeli-Palestinian conflict: a rocky hilltop, barren except for a few excavators glinting in the hot sun. They are laying the foundations for Israel’s first new settlement since the 1990s.
It will eventually house hundreds of people forced to leave their homes in Amona, a wildcat outpost that stood for nearly a decade near Ramallah. The new settlement, called Amichai, is a reminder of the obstacles facing United States President Donald Trump as he pursues an unlikely push for peace.
Amona was built on privatelyowned Palestinian land, and Israel’s Supreme Court ordered its demolition in 2014.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, took two years to strike a deal with residents: they would leave peacefully, and he would relocate them at state expense. He wanted to avoid a repeat of 2006, when hundreds of people were hurt in clashes between protesters and mounted officers during an eviction.
Despite the deal, the resettlement in February was a dramatic, chaotic affair that dragged on for two days. Some residents chained themselves inside their homes.
Hundreds of supporters who had joined the residents throughout January burnt tyres and threw bleach at the police.
Most of Amona’s residents are now living in dormitories in neighbouring settlements and waiting for construction to finish.
‘‘We will start here with new inspiration,’’ said Avichai Boaron, a resident of Amona who serves as a spokesman for the community.
Settlers have built scores of unauthorised ‘‘outposts’’, but Amichai is the first official Israeli settlement to be established in 25 years. It is located deep in the West Bank, far from the large ‘‘blocs’’ of settlements that Israel would probably keep in a final agreement with the Palestinians. Jordan is just 21 kilometres to the east, closer than Israel’s pre-1967 borders.
Almost 600,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.
The United Nations, and much of the world, considers their presence illegal and an obstacle to a peace deal.
When the most recent round of US-led peace talks collapsed in 2014, American officials placed much of the blame on Israel’s settlement policies.
Trump took office vowing to reach the ‘‘ultimate deal’’ between Israel and the Palestinians. He asked Netanyahu to ‘‘hold back on settlements a little bit’’ when the two met at the White House in February.
Netanyahu quietly complied, halting plans for a batch of new homes in east Jerusalem. The slowdown soon became a political liability for Netanyahu, whose narrow Right-wing coalition depends on settler support.
Netanyahu announced that Israel had broken ground on Amichai on June 20, hours before Jared Kushner, a senior adviser to Trump and also his son-in-law, arrived to discuss the peace process.
Netanyahu also advanced plans for thousands of other homes in east Jerusalem.
Nickolay Mladenov, the UN envoy to the region, said last month that there had been a ‘‘substantial increase’’ in settlement activity.
Peace Now, the Israeli NGO, said that new construction in the West Bank had soared by 70 per cent between April 2016 and March this year.
The group called the approval of Amichai a ‘‘significant blow’’ to the peace process. ‘‘Effectively, it is impossible to reach a two-state solution without the evacuation of this settlement,’’ it said in a statement. – The Times