Israel's West Bank settlers hope Trump's return will pave the way for major settlement expansion
UNB
Publish: 13 Nov 2024, 08:49 PM
BEIT
EL, West Bank, Nov 13 (AP/UNB) - As Donald Trump's victory became apparent in
last week's U.S. elections, Jewish West Bank settlement advocates popped
bottles of champagne and danced to the Bee Gees at a winery in the heart of the
occupied territory, according to a post on Instagram. The winery said it was
rolling out a special edition red named for the president-elect.
Settlement supporters
believe they have plenty of reasons to celebrate. Not only did the expansion of
housing for Jews in the West Bank soar past previous records during Trump's
first term, but his administration took unprecedented steps to support Israel's
territorial claims, including recognizing Jerusalem as its capital and moving
the U.S. Embassy there, and recognizing Israel's annexation of the Golan
Heights.
This time around, as
Israel is embroiled in a multifront war, settlement advocates believe Trump's
history of fervent support could translate into their supreme goal: Israeli
annexation of the West Bank - a move that critics say would smother any
remaining hopes for Palestinian statehood. Some are even gunning for resettling
Gaza under a Trump administration.
"God willing, the
year 2025 will be the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria," Israeli
Finance Minister and settlement firebrand Bezalel Smotrich said Monday,
referring to the West Bank by its biblical name, in comments that sparked
international uproar. He said he would make sure the government lobbies the
Trump administration on the idea.
Israel captured the West
Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The
Palestinians want those territories for their hoped-for future state. Israel
annexed east Jerusalem in a move most of the international community does not
recognize and in 2005 it withdrew its settlers and troops from the Gaza Strip,
where it has been fighting a war against Hamas.
Settlement expansion in
the West Bank has ballooned during Israel's open-ended occupation, with more
than half a million Israelis living in about 130 settlements and dozens of
unauthorized outposts. The Western-backed Palestinian Authority administers
semiautonomous parts of the West Bank that are home to most of the Palestinian
population.
During his first term as
president, Trump abandoned decades-long U.S. opposition to the settlements. He
proposed a Mideast plan that would have allowed Israel to keep them all. His
ambassador to Israel was a staunch settlement advocate and opponent of
Palestinian statehood.
But Trump also took
steps that are keeping some settler proponents cautious. His Mideast plan did
leave room for a Palestinian state, even if critics say it was an unrealistic
vision for one. And the Trump-brokered normalization agreements between Israel
and Arab countries held the country back from annexing the West Bank.
While he has not
explicitly stated his policy for his second term, his initial administration
picks, including ambassadors to Israel and the U.N., are deeply pro-Israel,
indicating he likely will not stand in the way of Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right government advancing settlement building.
"There has never
been an American president that has been more helpful in securing an
understanding of the sovereignty of Israel," Mike Huckabee, Trump's
nominee for ambassador to Israel, told Israel Army Radio, when asked about the
possibility of West Bank annexation. "I fully expect that to
continue."
A spokesperson for
Netanyahu declined to say whether the Israeli leader would pursue annexation
during Trump's presidency. But Netanyahu has named an American-born, hard-line
settlement activist, Yechiel Leiter, to serve as ambassador to Washington.
Rights groups already
claim Israel is enforcing an apartheid system in the West Bank, and annexation
would open Israel up to similar charges if it doesn't grant Palestinians there
equal rights. Israel opposes giving West Bank Palestinians citizenship, saying
it would destroy Israel's Jewish character.
Regardless of whether
annexation comes, settler advocates envision unbridled expansion under Trump
and under an Israeli government where settler leaders and supporters hold key
positions. They see a presidential term where they will be able to more deeply
entrench their presence in the West Bank with a proliferation of housing, roads
and industrial zones.
"I'm sure that with
President Trump it will be much easier because he supports the state of
Israel," said Israel Ganz, the chairman of the Yesha Council, a settler
lobbying group.
Israeli settlement
expansion has carried on to varying degrees under multiple American
administrations. During Trump's term, Israel advanced nearly 33,000 housing
units, according to Peace Now, an antisettlement watchdog group, almost three
times as much as during President Barack Obama's second term.
The numbers fell
significantly during the first two years of the Biden administration, but shot
up again in 2023, shortly after Israel's current far-right, prosettlement
government was formed, and have surged throughout the war.
The Biden administration
has slapped sanctions on Jewish settlers suspected of fomenting violence
against Palestinians, an approach that is likely to end under Trump.
In the West Bank,
billboards advertise new settlement housing, beckoning passersby to make their
home there. In Beit El, next to the Palestinian administrative center of Ramallah,
a new neighborhood boasts not the red-roofed, single-family homes that became
icons of the settler movement, but rather six towering multistory apartment
buildings that can house hundreds, and look like any Israeli suburb.
Palestinians view the settlements
as a violation of international law and an obstacle to peace, a position with
wide international support. Israel considers the West Bank to be the historical
and biblical heartland of the Jewish people and says any partition should be
agreed on in negotiations. Peace talks have been moribund for more than a
decade, and support for a Palestinian state among Israelis fell after Hamas'
Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that sparked the war.
Wasel Abu Yusuf, a
Palestinian official, said Trump hadn't yet made his positions clear and it was
unknown if he would support Israeli annexation.
Dror Etkes, an
antisettlement researcher and activist, said that during the first Trump
administration, West Bank outpost farms, which have forced entire Palestinian
communities off huge swaths of land, saw a "meteoric rise," as did
infrastructure projects that allow settlements to expand, like roads and water
systems.
Over the next four
years, "we can assume that we will see more significant steps of de facto
annexation or maybe even official annexation," Etkes said.
Some settler advocates,
like Daniella Weiss, believe Trump will not pressure Netanyahu to withdraw troops
swiftly from Gaza, creating an opening for resettlement. That notion would be a
nonstarter with other American administrations, and much of the international
community would oppose it.
A similar strategy in
the early years of Israel's West Bank occupation led to the proliferation of
settlements there. Two of Netanyahu's key governing partners also support
resettling Gaza, although the Israeli leader has said it is not
"realistic."
Yair Sheleg, a research
fellow at Jerusalem's Shalom Hartman Institute who studies the settler
movement, said Trump was "fickle" and that in his expected push to
normalize ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, he could end up being less
favorable to the settlement enterprise than many hope.
But nonetheless, he
said, the overarching feeling among settler advocates is that "Trump
understands ... the needs of the settlement enterprise."
End/UNB/AP/HM