Israel’s West Bank settlements are illegal, ‘weakens’ Jewish state’s security, Blinken says
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that any expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank would violate international law — a reversal of previous Trump-era policy.
“It’s been longstanding US policy under Republican and Democratic administrations alike that new settlements are counterproductive to reaching enduring peace,” Blinken said at a press conference in Buenos Aires Friday, according to CNN.
“They’re also inconsistent with international law. Our administration maintains a firm opposition to settlement expansion. And in our judgment, this only weakens — it doesn’t strengthen — Israel’s security,” he insisted.
In 2019, then-President Donald Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flipped decades of US policy when he said that the establishment of Israeli settlements in the West Bank was not necessarily illegal.
About 500,000 Israeli civilians now live in Palestinian territory in the West Bank — as well as more than 200,000 in East Jerusalem, the New York Times noted.
The settlements have steadily grown since the Six-Day War in 1967, according to the Israel Policy Forum.
The US has not intervened in the process, despite the 1978 State Department legal opinion that the communities violated international law.
Blinken’s remarks in Argentina came after Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for thousands of new housing units in the West Bank after a Palestinian gunman killed one and wounded six others, CNN said.
“May every terrorist planning to harm us know that any lifting of a hand against Israeli citizens will be met with a death blow and the destruction, and the deepening of our eternal grip on the entire Land of Israel,” Smotrich declared, according to the Times of Israel.
On Friday, Blinken said he was “disappointed” by the announcement.
At the same time, however, the State Department declined to explain how it planned to hold Israeli settlers accounting for building new settlements, the New York Times pointed out.
Blinken also said he was withholding judgment on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s postwar plans for the Gaza Strip — which included demilitarizing the territory.
Netanyahu’s plan to maintain security control over “the entire area west of Jordan” is also a slap in the face to President Biden’s administration, which stipulated no reduction in the Palestinian territory.