2024-02-28 22:02:20
This content was published on 28 February 2024 – 22:03
By Humeyra Pamuk and Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A plan announced by Israel last week to add thousands of housing units in West Bank settlements was the final push that led the Biden administration to say the plan was “inconsistent” with international law, U.S. officials and sources said.
Instead of the carefully crafted presentation of policies that is typical in Washington, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken presented this policy shift to a question at a news conference in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires.
“It is long-standing American policy in both Republican and Democratic administrations that new settlements are harmful to achieving lasting peace… and are also inconsistent with international law,” Blinken told reporters.
The shift in policy took a long time, but the final decision emerged within hours, surprising many and raising questions regarding why this moment was chosen to return to what the American position had been for four decades until the previous administration of Donald Trump changed it.
Just 24 hours ago, there were no plans for Blinken to make such a statement on Friday at the scheduled news conference, the sources said.
But following the far-right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said that the Israeli government had approved plans to build regarding 3,300 new housing units in the settlements, in response to a Palestinian shooting attack that resulted in deaths in the West Bank, American officials concluded that the time was right to reveal Shift in the language of discourse.
A US official familiar with the decision said: “The administration has certainly been studying this for a long time, and recent events have made it clear that it is time to clarify this.”
* Israel pledges to “continue the momentum”
Smotrich, the influential leader of one of the far-right parties in the coalition government led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, lives in a settlement in the West Bank.
Late Tuesday, he reiterated his pledge to continue expanding settlements, announcing approval for the construction of a new settlement called Mishmar Yehuda in Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem, and saying work would continue to allow for more.
“We will continue the settlement momentum throughout the country,” Smotrich said in a statement.
This change in policy in the United States is due to the ranks of most countries in the world that consider the settlements established on the lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 war as illegal. Israel refutes this opinion, saying that the Jews have historical and biblical ties with this land.
The sources said that the Biden administration, since assuming power in January 2021, has come close several times to returning to the rhetoric that dominated the pre-Trump era, but each time this step was postponed, and this is largely due to the lack of consensus among senior administration officials. .
The officials said that plans to modify the political approach were temporarily halted due to the attack by the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on October 7, which resulted in the killing of 1,200 Israelis and the taking of more than 250 hostages, which prompted Israel to launch a military operation that resulted in a large number of deaths. . The officials added that discussions on this issue continued within the administration.
* “An obstacle to peace”
The decision to change the US rhetoric now highlights the Biden administration’s growing frustration with Netanyahu. The gap of disagreement between the Israeli leader and his biggest supporter, US President Joe Biden, is widening on a range of issues related to the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Despite US pressure once morest the reoccupation of Gaza, Netanyahu has repeatedly said that Israel will maintain security control over the densely populated Strip following the war ends. He refused to agree to a peace agreement that envisaged the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Washington has repeatedly warned Israeli officials that settlement expansion is an obstacle to peace and that Israel must take action to stop settler violence once morest Palestinians in the West Bank.
The United States recently imposed sanctions on four Israeli men accused of involvement in settler violence.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the Israeli announcement of building settlements last week, saying that it undermines the chances of implementing the two-state solution.
Last month, the Israeli group Peace Now, which monitors settlement expansion, said that settlement activities had witnessed an unprecedented increase since the beginning of the Gaza war in October.
“From a political standpoint, we have always been clear that we believe settlements are an obstacle to peace and that they weaken, not strengthen, Israel’s security,” US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Monday, when asked why it took three years for the administration to change its policy.
“This matter, as a legal matter, has been under review here at the department for some time,” Miller said. But he refused to specify the date for the start of the review.
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