The decision – which was also announced at the White House – was an immediate response to reports that the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is planning further settlement expansion, according to a US official, one of several who discussed the decision on condition of anonymity under Management rules.
Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday evening announced plans to approve the construction of 3,000 new settlement homes after Israeli police said Palestinian gunmen opened fire near the existing Maale Adumim settlement, killing one Israeli and wounding five. He said the expansion plans are part of “deepening our eternal grip on the entire Land of Israel.”
“This is outrageous,” said a former Biden official, after all the American support the Israeli government has received in the past few months. “For Smotrich to go and do that, it's basically just insulting you.”
US officials said the decision to clarify Washington's position on settlements had already been considered and planned as another in recent actions designed to express the administration's growing alarm at Israeli actions in Gaza and the West Bank – starting with visa restrictions announced in December. On the settlers who used acts of violence and undermined security in the West Bank.
In February, President Biden issued an executive order authorizing financial sanctions on four specific settlers, followed a week later by a national security memorandum reminding recipients of US weapons of the need to comply with US and international law.
White House spokesman John Kirby, minutes after Blinken's remarks in Argentina, told reporters in Washington that the decision to declare the settlements illegal brought the Biden administration into line with previous US administrations – with the exception of the Trump administration.
He added: “We simply reaffirm the basic conclusion that these settlements are contrary to international law.” “This is a position that has remained consistent over a range of Republican and Democratic administrations — if ever there was an administration that was inconsistent, it was the previous one.”
The statement describing Israeli settlements in the occupied territories as illegal returns US policy to what it has been since 1978, when a State Department legal opinion declared such settlements “contrary to international law.” This opinion, issued during the Carter administration, stated that “territory under the control of a belligerent occupier does not therefore become its sovereign territory.”
At the time, there were an estimated 75 Israeli settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. Now, there are at least 146 settlements allowed by the Israeli government in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, along with 144 that are not officially recognized, according to Peace Now, an Israeli organization that advocates a two-state solution.
The 1978 policy has been upheld under all subsequent administrations, although many people preferred euphemisms such as saying that the settlements are an “obstacle to peace.” In 2005, Israel withdrew its settlements from Gaza.
But in 2019, Trump's Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, announced that the United States no longer considered the settlements a violation of international law, though he never directed a new legal opinion.
Under Trump's unfinished peace plan, Israel would have been allowed sovereignty over all existing settlements and allowed to annex up to 30% of the West Bank. During his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden said his policy would be based on his commitment to a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, but he did not commit to reversing Trump's actions, which included moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognizing Israel's annexation. Golan Heights of Syria.
During his first visit to Israel as Secretary of State in May 2021, Blinken said the Biden administration opposed “any steps” — including new settlements — that would risk “provoking violence” or undermining “the possibility of a return to pursuing a two-state solution.” Much of the new construction undertaken and proposed by the Netanyahu government is an expansion of existing settlements.
In February of last year, a joint statement issued by American, Palestinian, Israeli, Egyptian and Jordanian officials after a summit held in the Jordanian city of Aqaba said that Israel pledged “to stop discussing any new settlement units for four months and to stop allowing any settlement outposts for six months.”
But immediately afterwards, Smotrich announced that “there will be no freeze on construction and development, not even for a single day.”
Violence has increased dramatically in the West Bank, where there are now at least 700,000 Israeli settlers, since the October 7 attacks in southern Israel that killed about 1,200 Israelis. This led to continued Israeli military operations in Gaza, where nearly 30,000 Palestinians were killed, according to Gaza health authorities.
Since the beginning of the war, according to the United Nations, 399 Palestinians have been killed in conflict-related incidents across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including 102 children, and 4,545 Palestinians have been injured, including 702 children.
During the same period, 13 Israelis were killed, including four members of the Israeli army, and 86 others were injured.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J-Street, a liberal policy group on Israeli-Palestinian issues, said the Biden administration “tried hard not to get involved in any of this,” calling the settlements “unhelpful.” “The last four and a half months show that this is not a problem you can ignore. It will explode if you do nothing.”
De Jong reported from Washington.
