By Dan Williams
JERUSALEM, Feb 12 (Reuters) – Israel on Sunday granted retroactive clearance to nine Jewish settler outposts in the occupied West Bank and announced massive new housing construction in already established settlements, moves likely to spark opposition from UNITED STATES.
The first to publish the decisions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet were two pro-settler politicians, whose inclusion in the coalition he formed after the Nov. 1 election had already signaled a hard right turn .
Most world powers consider settlements illegal to occupy land where Palestinians seek a state. Israel denies it. Since conquering the West Bank in the 1967 war, it has established 132 settlements, according to the monitoring group Peace Now.
In recent years, fanatical settlers have set up dozens of outposts without government permission. Some were bulldozed by the police, others retroactively allowed. The nine authorized on Sunday are the first in this Netanyahu government.
A statement from Netanyahu’s office also says a planning committee will meet in the coming days to approve new settlement housing. Far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said these would amount to 10,000.
The administration of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose US-sponsored state-building talks with Israel broke down in 2014, said Sunday’s announcement should be “condemned and rejected”.
“It is a challenge to American and Arab efforts and a provocation to the Palestinian people, and will lead to further tension and escalation,” Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said.
There was no immediate comment from the US Embassy. But the ambassador, Thomas Nides, had made it clear last month that the US government would oppose such measures.
“We want to keep alive the vision of a two-state solution. He (Netanyahu) understands that we understand that massive settlement growth will not achieve that goal,” Nides said.
“We have been very clear on the ideas of legalizing outposts, massive settlement expansion – that will not keep the vision of a two-state solution alive, in which case we will oppose it and be very clear on our opposition,” he said. Kan told Israeli TV in an interview on January 11.
Statements by Smotrich, fellow ultranationalist Itamar Ben-Gvir and Netanyahu’s office said support for the settlements is partly a response to recent Palestinian attacks. But they had already agreed to those plans before their coalition was sworn in on Dec. 29.
While welcoming the Netanyahu government’s announcement, West Bank settler leader Yossi Dagan called for “the complete removal of barriers to construction, to allow for full-fledged construction.”
The other Palestinian territory, Gaza, is under the control of the Islamists of Hamas, who refuse peace with Israel. (Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Writing by Dan Williams. Editing in Spanish by Ricardo Figueroa)