Emboldened by Trump win, Israel steps up housing activities
Israel revived plans on Wednesday to build 500 new homes for Jewish settlers in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, an ominous sign for Palestinians wary of a Donald Trump presidency, an NGO said.
The international community considers all settlements illegal and sees them as one of the largest obstacles to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
“The political significance of this action is that it is the first plan to be promoted since the US elections,” Betty Herschman from the Ir Amim NGO said.
The plan for 500 housing units in Ramat Shlomo, a radical Jewish neighbourhood in east Jerusalem of around 20,000, had been on hold since 2014, Ir Amim said.
The occupied Jerusalem municipality downplayed the significance of the new housing units, saying the plans were “not new and were approved years ago”.
Nevertheless, the announcement is likely to be interpreted by some as a first step in Israel expanding its settlements in the wake of Trump’s upset election victory.
The president-elect’s adviser on Israel, David Friedman, said last month that he does not believe Trump sees Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank as illegal.
One Israeli minister said Trump’s win meant “the era of a Palestinian state is over” while Meir Turjeman, chairman of the Jerusalem municipality planning committee, told public radio in November it meant suspended permits in east Jerusalem would be given the green light.
He said the municipality intended to authorise thousands of housing units that had been frozen.
UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov told the Security Council on Wednesday that Israel’s latest plan for new settlement homes in east Jerusalem were part of “increasingly worrying” developments and urged Israel to halt the construction.
“The situation on the ground is changing steadily, dangerously, as proponents of Israeli settlement expansion feel emboldened, internal divisions among Palestinians flare up, and the prospect of a future Palestinian state comes under threat like never before,” Mladenov said.