{"id":146598,"date":"2025-08-15T01:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T01:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/146598\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T01:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T01:58:10","slug":"israels-announcement-of-a-settlement-project-in-the-west-bank-sparks-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/146598\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel’s announcement of a settlement project in the West Bank sparks controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

MAALE ADUMIM, West Bank (AP) \u2014 Israel\u2019s far-right finance minister said Thursday that a contentious new settlement construction<\/a> in the Israeli-occupied West Bank<\/a> is going ahead \u2014 a project that Palestinians and rights groups worry will scuttle plans for a Palestinian state by effectively cutting the territory into two parts.<\/p>\n

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich<\/a> boasted that the construction, which is expected to get final approval later this month could thwart Palestinian statehood plans. <\/p>\n

His announcement came as many countries, including Australia<\/a>, Britain, France, and Canada<\/a> say they will recognize a Palestinian state in September, at the United Nations General Assembly.<\/p>\n

A controversial, yearslong plan<\/p>\n

The construction on a tract of land east of Jerusalem named E1 has been under consideration<\/a> for more than two decades, and is especially controversial because it is one of the last geographic links between the major West Bank cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem.<\/p>\n

The two cities are 22 kilometers (14 miles) apart by air. But once the E1 settlement project is completed, it will destroy the possibility of a direct route and will force Palestinians traveling between cities to continue taking a wide detour several kilometers (miles) out of their way, passing through multiple checkpoints, a process that adds hours<\/a> to the journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis reality finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state, because there is nothing to recognize and no one to recognize,\u201d Smotrich said during a ceremony on Thursday. \u201cAnyone in the world who tries today to recognize a Palestinian state \u2014 will receive an answer from us on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> did not publicly comment on the plan on Thursday, but he has touted it in the past<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Development in E1 was long frozen, largely due to U.S. pressure during previous administrations. On Thursday, Smotrich praised President Donald Trump<\/a> and U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee<\/a> as \u201ctrue friends of Israel as we have never had before.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n AP AUDIO: Israel announces a settlement project that critics say will effectively cut the West Bank in two\n <\/p>\n

AP correspondent Charles de Ledesma reports Israel is focusing on building settlements within the West Bank near Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

Condemnation by Palestinians, rights groups<\/p>\n

The E1 plan is expected to receive final approval on Aug. 20, capping off 20 years of bureaucratic wrangling. The planning committee on Aug. 6 rejected all of the petitions to stop the construction filed by rights groups and activists, according to Peace Now, which tracks settlement expansion in the West Bank and filed opposition. <\/p>\n

While some bureaucratic steps remain, if the process moves quickly, infrastructure work could begin in the next few months and construction of homes could start in around a year. <\/p>\n

The approval is a \u201ccolonial, expansionist, and racist move,\u201d Ahmed Al-Deek, the political adviser to the minister of Palestinian Foreign Affairs, told The Associated Press on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt falls within the framework of the extremist Israeli government\u2019s plans to undermine any possibility of establishing a Palestinian state on the ground, to fragment the West Bank, and to separate its southern part from the center and the north,\u201d Al-Deek said.<\/p>\n

Rights groups also swiftly condemned the plan. Peace Now called it \u201cdeadly for the future of Israel and for any chance of achieving a peaceful two-state solution\u201d which is \u201cguaranteeing many more years of bloodshed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Palestinian Authority and Arab countries have condemned Netanyahu\u2019s statement in an interview on Tuesday that he was \u201cvery\u201d attached to the vision of a Greater Israel. The prime minister did not elaborate, but some supporters of the idea believe that Israel should control the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Others believe this harks back to the biblical borders of Israel, which also include parts of other Arab countries, such as modern-day Jordan and Lebanon.<\/p>\n

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also condemned the announcement and reiterated U.N. calls on the Israeli government to halt all settlement activity, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.<\/p>\n

The settlements violate international law, \u201cfurther entrench the occupation, fuel tensions, and systematically erode the viability of a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution,\u201d Dujarric said. <\/p>\n

If the E1 area construction goes ahead, it will cut the West Bank in two and severely undermine the \u201cprospects for the realization of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

A difficult reality<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s plans to expand settlements are part of an increasingly difficult reality for Palestinians<\/a> in the occupied West Bank as the world\u2019s attention focuses on the war in Gaza<\/a>. There have been marked increases in settler attacks against Palestinians, evictions from Palestinian towns and checkpoints that choke freedom of movement, as well as several Palestinian attacks on Israelis. <\/p>\n

More than 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 international community overwhelmingly considers Israeli settlement construction in these areas to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s government is dominated by religious and ultranationalist politicians with close ties to the settlement movement. Smotrich, previously a firebrand settler leader and now finance minister, has been granted Cabinet-level authority over settlement policies and vowed to double the settler population<\/a> in the West Bank.<\/p>\n

Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians claim all three territories for a future independent state.<\/p>\n

Israel has annexed east Jerusalem and claims it as part of its capital, which is not internationally recognized. It says the West Bank is disputed territory whose fate should be determined through negotiations, while Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MAALE ADUMIM, West Bank (AP) \u2014 Israel\u2019s far-right finance minister said Thursday that a contentious new settlement construction…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":146599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[97,86680,36676,372,26715,69,57,330,409,99,3462,3463,28281,50,80,365,75908,1206,36679,96,17262,103,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-146598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-2024-2025-mideast-wars","9":"tag-ahmed-al-deek","10":"tag-antonio-guterres","11":"tag-benjamin-netanyahu","12":"tag-bezalel-smotrich","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-government-programs","16":"tag-immigration","17":"tag-israel","18":"tag-israel-government","19":"tag-mideast-wars","20":"tag-mike-huckabee","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-politics","23":"tag-religion","24":"tag-stephane-dujarric","25":"tag-united-nations","26":"tag-united-nations-general-assembly","27":"tag-war-and-unrest","28":"tag-west-bank","29":"tag-world","30":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115030307930032654","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}