US won’t prevent Israel’s illegal settlement expansion, says Israeli source

Following a public US objection to Israeli approval of 3144 illegal settlement housing units in the occupied West Bank, earlier this week, a source close to Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said the Biden administration doesn’t actually care, and won’t prevent similar moves in the future.

“Contrary to the impression they’re trying to make, the Americans don’t care that much about the Ministry of Construction and Housing’s decision, and they have no problem tolerating it,” the source said, according to a Friday report from The Times of Israel’s sister site Zman Yisrael.

“This construction is not part of the conversation we are having with the Americans. We noticed that. The Americans understand the political situation here very well, and they do not want to see us go down over this [issue]. They also know what the alternative is,” Zman Yisrael quoted the source close to Bennett as saying.

On Wednesday Israeli ‘Supreme Council for Planning’ approved a plan to construct 3144 settlement units in the occupied West Bank.

According to the plan, 1804 settlement units out of 3144 have already got the final approval to be constructed.

Another 1,326 units were advanced to a later stage of the planning process.

It is the first time settlement units have been approved during the Biden administration and by the current Israeli occupation government led by Bennett, as since the formation of the new occupation government on 13/6/21, no plans have been approved in the settlements.

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in housing units planning, and in 2020, plans were advanced for 12,159 housing units.

There are nearly 700,000 Israeli settlers living in 256 illegal settlements and outposts scattered across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.

On Tuesday, the US State Department said it was “deeply concerned” about Israel’s plans to advance new settlement units, including many deep inside the occupied West Bank.

“We strongly oppose the expansion of settlements, which is completely inconsistent with efforts to lower tensions and to ensure calm, and damages the prospects for a two-state solution,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken phoned Israeli War Minister Benny Gantz on Tuesday voicing similar objections regarding the scope and location of the settlement approvals, another Israeli official confirmed.