In the biggest expansion of occupied West Bank settlements in decades, Israel has approved the establishment of 22 new Jewish communities in the occupied territory. The move has been criticised by Israeli human rights groups.
Two of the settlements – Homesh and Sa Nur – were evacuated as part of the 2005 disengagement plan from Gaza, which also included four settlements in the northern West Bank.
Four new settlements are also earmarked along Israel’s eastern border with Jordan, as part of the effort to reinforce Israel’s presence along the Jordan river.
Defence minister Israel Katz described Jewish settlements as a vital defensive shield for the big population centres in central Israel. “This historic decision to establish 22 new settlements in Judea and Samaria strengthens our hold on the land, anchors our historical right to the Land of Israel and constitutes a crushing response to Palestinian terrorism that seeks to harm and weaken the settlement movement,” he said, using the Biblical name for the West Bank.
“It is also a strategic step that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel and serves as a buffer against our enemies.”
Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, head of the far-right Religious Zionist Party, said: “Through hard work and determined leadership, we have, thank God, succeeded in creating a strategic shift, returning Israel to a path of building, Zionism and vision. Settlement in the land of our forefathers is the protective wall of Israel, and today we took a giant step in strengthening it. The next step: sovereignty. We did not take a foreign land, but rather our ancestral homeland.”
Israel has built about 160 settlements across the West Bank since it captured the land from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War. The settlements are considered illegal by most of the international community.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesperson for Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, said it was a “dangerous escalation”, accusing Israel of continuing to drag the region into a cycle of violence and instability. “This extremist Israeli government is trying by all means to prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state,” he said, urging Washington to intervene.
Lior Amichai, director of the Israeli anti-settlement Peace Now NGO, also criticised the move. “The government of Israel is making clear it plans to annex the West Bank and is doing so in a dramatic fashion. Establishing 22 new settlements is a clear message to the world: We want to prolong this war and this conflict to last forever.”
Meanwhile, Israeli leaders are threatening that if states such as France and Canada pursue plans to recognise a Palestinian state, Israel will respond with “unilateral measures” – thought to be a reference to annexing parts of the West Bank.
