Less than a week after announcing plans for the occupation of Gaza City and taking military control of the enclave, Israel is once again under global criticism, now for the government’s decision to expand a settlement in the West Bank that would make a Palestinian state unviable.
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The plan, announced by the Minister of Finance, the ultranationalist Bezalel Smotrich, involves building more than 3,000 homes to connect East Jerusalem with the Ma’ale Adumim settlement, considered illegal by the international community, claiming that the measure “buries the idea of a Palestinian state.”
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In practice, the project called E1 would double the population of the settlement with 35,000 new residents in the coming years and thus cut off the territorial connectivity of the West Bank between Ramallah and Bethlehem.
Therefore, hours after Smotrich’s press conference and boasting that in the West Bank Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “lets me do everything,” strong criticism emerged from diplomats and leaders from both the Western world and Arab countries.
What are the criticisms against the expansion of Israeli settlements?
The United Nations Secretary-General asked Israel regarding the settlement considered illegal to “not proceed and to stop the advancement of this process.” Additionally, it recalled that the UN’s position on settlements “is clear”: they contravene international law and “further entrench the occupation and move away the possibility of a two-state solution.”
From the European Union, the Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Anitta Hipper, reiterated the call to Israel “to stop the construction of settlements” and urged them to “reconsider this decision, pointing out its profound implications and the need to consider measures to protect the viability of the two-state solution.”
Hipper added that “the Israeli settlement policy, which includes demolitions, forced transfers, evictions, and home confiscations, must cease”, emphasizing that the settlement plans near Ma’ale Adumim “will permanently disrupt the territorial contiguity between occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as the connection between the northern and southern West Bank”.
In the United Kingdom, a country that plans to recognize the Palestinian state in September, the Foreign Affairs Minister, David Lammy, stated that the project constituted a violation of international law and should be stopped immediately. “The United Kingdom strongly opposes the Israeli government’s E1 settlement plans, which would divide a future Palestinian state in two,” Lammy said in a statement.
José Manuel Albares, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain, wrote on the social network X that Israel’s decision “attacks the viability of the two-state solution, the only path to peace” and added that "we condemn the expansion of settlements and the violence of the settlers.
Among the Arab countries, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Egypt denounced Smotrich for his “extremist statements” and assured that they are “an example of Israeli deviation and arrogance”, while Qatar, which has mediated between Hamas and Israel in efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, stated that the actions of the Israeli Finance Minister are a “flagrant violation of international law.”
Even in the United States, Netanyahu’s government’s main ally, a spokesperson for the State Department timidly commented that “a stable West Bank keeps Israel safe and fits with this administration’s goal of achieving peace in the region,” according to a statement sent to Europa Press.