2 yıl önce

Expanding illegal West Bank settlements is Netanyahu's govt top priority

Tel Aviv has announced that it will legalise dozens of illegally built outposts on Palestinian lands and annex the occupied territory.

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The violence perpetrated by the Jewish settlers against Palestinians has increased with the implicit support of the Israeli state for years,

Benjamin Netanyahu’s incoming hardline government has put illegal West Bank settlement expansion at the top of its list of priorities, vowing to legalise dozens of illegally built outposts and annex the occupied territory as part of its coalition deal with its ultranational, far-right allies.

The coalition agreements, released on Wednesday, a day before the government is to be sworn into office, include a commitment to expand and vastly increase government funding for the illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, where Ben-Gvir lives in an illegal settlement.

The deal also included generous stipends for ultra-Orthodox men who prefer to study instead of work.

Netanyahu’s new government — the most religious and hard-line in Israel’s history — is made up of ultra-Orthodox parties, a far-right ultranationalist religious faction affiliated with illegal West Bank settlers and his Likud party.

In the coalition agreement between Likud and Religious Zionism, Netanyahu pledges to legalise settlement outposts considered illegal even by the Israeli government. He also promises to annex the West Bank “while choosing the timing and considering the national and international interests of the state of Israel.”

Such a move, already illegal under international law, would further alienate much of the world, and give new fuel to critics who compare Israeli policies to apartheid South Africa.

Deals with extremist politicians

The deal also grants favours to Itamar Ben-Gvir, an extremist far-right politician who will be in charge of the national police force as the newly created national security minister.

AP

Ben-Gvir (R) is the disciple of a racist rabbi, Meir Kahane, who was banned from Parliament and whose Kach party was branded a terrorist group by the United States before he was assassinated in New York in 1990.

Among its other changes is placing Bezalel Smotrich, a settler leader who heads Religious Zionism party, in a newly created ministerial post overseeing West Bank settlements.

Smotrich, who will also be finance minister, is expected to push hard to expand construction and funding for illegal settlements while stifling Palestinian development in the territory.

Decades of Israeli occupation

Israel occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza during the 1967 Middle East War. It annexed the entire East Jerusalem city in 1980, claiming it as Israel's "eternal" capital — a move never recognised by the international community.

It pulled back from Gaza in 2005 and has since then maintained a harsh blockade from land, sea and air on the besieged Palestinian enclave.

Palestine sees those territories as part of its country, with East Jerusalem its heartland and ultimate capital.

Under international law, the West Bank and East Jerusalem are "occupied territories" and all Jewish settlement-building activities on the land are illegal.

Palestinians accuse Israel of waging an aggressive campaign to "Judaise" the historic city by effacing its Palestinian Arab and Islamic identity and driving out its Palestinian inhabitants.

Almost 500,000 illegal Israeli settlers live in over 130 settlements dotting the occupied West Bank alongside nearly three million Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation.

SOURCE: TRTWorld and agencies