Israel’s far-right government on Monday approved plans to build thousands of new homes in Jewish settlements in the West Bank — a move that threatened to worsen increasingly strained relations with the United States.
The decision defied growing US criticism of Israel’s settlement policies. It also raised tensions with the Palestinians at a time of rising violence in the occupied territory.
Multiple Israeli media outlets said the Defence Ministry planning committee that oversees settlement construction approved over 5,000 new settlement homes. The units are at various stages of planning, and it was not immediately clear when construction would begin. The ministry did not immediately comment.
The international community, along with the Palestinians, considers settlement construction illegal or illegitimate and obstacles to peace. Over 700,000 Israelis now live in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem — territories captured by Israel in 1967 and sought by the Palestinians for a future state.
“The Netanyahu government is moving forward with its aggression and open war against the Palestinian people,” said Wassel Abu Yousef, a Palestinian official in the West Bank. “We affirm that all settler colonialism in all the occupied Palestinian territories is illegitimate and illegal.” Israel’s government, which took office in late December, is dominated by religious and ultranationalist politicians with close ties to the settlement movement. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a firebrand settler leader, has been granted Cabinet-level authority over settlement policies and has vowed to double the settler population in the West Bank. The Biden Administration has been increasingly outspoken in its criticism of Israel’s settlement policies. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the settlements “an obstacle to the horizon of hope we seek” in a speech to the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC. Despite the criticism, the US has taken little action against Israel. In a sign of its displeasure, the White House has not yet invited Netanyahu for a visit – as is customary following Israeli elections.
And this week, the US said it would not transfer funds to Israeli institutions for science and technology research projects in the West Bank. The decision restored a longstanding policy that had been cancelled by the pro-settlement Trump administration.
Ahead of Monday’s vote, Israeli Cabinet Minister Issac Wasserlauf, a member of the far-right Jewish Power party, played down the disagreements with the US.“I think the alliance with the US will remain,” he told the Army Radio station. “There are disagreements, we knew how to deal with them in the past.”