Israel plans West Bank settlement expansion amid policy shifts in Washington
JERUSALEM — Israel approved the construction of 2,500 housing units in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank on Tuesday, just two days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with President Trump.
Netanyahu and members of his right-wing government have bristled at the harsh condemnations of settlement growth by the Obama administration, which condemned the Jewish communities as "illegitimate" and "an obstacle to peace."
Trump, however, has signaled more accommodating policies toward Israel and has called for moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, a city claimed as the capital of both Israel and a potential future Palestinian state. The Jewish settlements have grown to house more than 400,000 Jewish residents in the West Bank.
"We're building — and will continue to build," Netanyahu said following the announcement.
There was no initial reaction to the announcement by the Trump White House or the State Department.
Lior Amihai, a leader of the Israeli watchdog group called Settlement Watch, said that the 2,500 units wes the larget since the U.S.-led peace negotations between the Palestinians and Israel broke down in April 2014.
A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the Israeli plans undermine efforts to bring peace to the Middle East and will promote extremism.
The spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdeneh, called on the international community to take a "real and serious position" against Israel's plans.
"We are returning to normal life in Judea and Samaria," Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a statement announcing the plans, using the biblical terms for the West Bank.
The announcement of 2,500 units comes just two days after a Jerusalem planning committee approved the construction of 560 housing units in East Jerusalem, on territory that most of the world considered occupied. Israel disputes this.
Israeli officials stressed that most of the 2,500 new housing in the West Bank would be built in so-called "settlement blocs," densely populated lands that leaders here say will always remain in Israel, regardless of any future peace deal with the Palestinians.
In the same announcement, Lieberman approved the construction of a Palestinian industrial park outside Hebron in the West Bank.
"It will be one of the largest industrial zones in the West Bank, in which we are planning to set up warehouse and fuel storage infrastructure, along with other elements," Lieberman said in a statement.