The United States and its allies have historically done little to pressure Israel to stop or roll back settlement expansion.
The United States has declared new Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories illegal, reversing the policy of former President Donald Trump’s administration.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s announcement that more than 3,300 new Israeli settlements were to be built in the occupied West Bank was “disappointing”.
“It has long been the policy of both Democratic and Republican administrations that new settlements are counterproductive to achieving lasting peace. They are also inconsistent with international law,” Blinken said at a news conference Friday evening in Buenos Aires.
“Our administration remains strongly opposed to settlement expansion. In our view, this only weakens, not strengthens, Israel’s security,” he added, without making any mention of the tangible consequences Israel could face in the event of settlement expansion.
This goes against the so-called Pompeo Doctrine, which referred to a November 2019 announcement by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that Washington supported Israeli settlements in the West Bank, over the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem as legal.
The majority of the world community considers these settlements illegal and an extension of Israeli occupation.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters that Blinken’s position “has been consistent across a range of Republican and Democratic administrations.”
“If there’s ever an administration that lacks consistency, it’s the previous one,” Kirby said.
The Pompeo Doctrine itself reversed a legal position held by the US State Department since 1978, when the administration of former President Jimmy Carter found that Israeli settlements violated international law.
Germany also condemned the latest Israeli plans to build thousands of new homes for settlers in the occupied West Bank.
“You know our position on settlement building. This is against international law and this also applies when carrying out new construction projects,” Kathrin Deschauer, deputy spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, said at a press conference in Berlin.
New colonies
Israel’s Smotrich had announced that the new settlement plans were meant to be a response to what he called a “terrorist” attack on Thursday, when three Palestinians opened fire near a checkpoint between Jerusalem and the town of Ma’ale Adumim, in the occupied West Bank, killing an Israeli and injuring several others.
Smotrich now plans to build 2,350 new housing units on Palestinian land in Ma’ale Adumim, 300 in Kedar and 694 in Efrat, with the support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh on Saturday called the announcement a “blatant challenge to the international community” and an obstacle to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
Israel’s settlement watchdog, Peace Now, said “Israeli’s budget for 2024 shows an addition of more than $100 million to settlements.”
“In 2024, coalition funds for settlements will amount to more than $203 million (instead of the $76 million initially allocated in the government decision of May 2023),” he adds.
Ministers in the most far-right administration in Israel’s history also called for increased restrictions on Palestinians, including heavy restrictions on movement, after the attack.
Over the decades, Israel has advanced plans to build new illegal settlements, regardless of any attack. The United States and its allies have historically done little to pressure Israel to stop or roll back settlement expansion.
Raids in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel had become almost daily even before the war on Gaza began on October 7, and they have only intensified considerably since then, also becoming more deadly.
In the Gaza Strip, more than 29,500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks since the start of the war, most of them children and women.