This, following a public request from the United States to halt construction of Jewish communities in the West Bank districts of Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley.
“There will be no construction freeze in Judea and Samaria period,” said a statement issued by the Israeli Religious Zionism party (RZP) headed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
The faction is one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s new hard-right allies in the country’s 37th government.
In addition to the Finance Ministry, Minister Smotrich was also granted significant powers as part of his oversight of Defence Ministry organizations responsible for enforcing some regulations in the West Bank.
Several senior members of the coalition, including RZP, have sought to further expand Jewish settlement in the disputed territories, conquered by Israel in the Six Day War.
Israel’s 1967 military victory reunited a then-divided Jerusalem after conquering the eastern portion of the city and parts of the West Bank from Jordan (in addition to the Golan Heights from Syria and Gaza from Egypt). Palestinians demand east Jerusalem and the West Bank for a future country as part of the so-called “Two-State Solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Most world powers consider Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as “illegal“.
Refusal to implement a moratorium on building comes just a week after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken pressed Israel to do so.
On a visit to Jerusalem and Ramallah, Blinken publicly repeated Washington’s call for the Two-State Solution, in accordance with the Palestinian Authority’s own insistence that Israeli settlement expansion be halted.
Three American and Arab sources have confirmed that Washington’s top diplomat repeated the request during private talks with Netanyahu, although they emphasized that the request was not expressed as a formal demand.
The last round of US-sponsored peace talks between the sides stalled in 2014.
HD Editor’s Note: Why Is This News Biblically Relevant?
Former Sec. of State Mike Pompeo announced in 2019 that the United States does not consider Israeli Settlements in the West Bank a violation of International Law.
The move was applauded by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who thanked the Trump admin. “for their steadfast position supporting truth and justice” and further stated that the policy “reflect[ed] a historical truth” and fixed a “historic wrong.”
The PM added that “the Jewish people are not foreign colonialists in Judea and Samaria. In fact, we are called Jews because we are the people of Judea.”
In his speech to the Jerusalem Post conference in 2021, Mike Pompeo urged that the “future of our nations demands a more forceful assertion of the truth,” specifically addressing the antisemitic lie that Israel is an “occupier.”
“The future of our nations demands a more forceful assertion of the truth. In Israel’s case, it specifically involves confronting a false narrative that is the very beating heart of modern antisemitism. That beating heart is the lie. It is the lie that the State of Israel is an illegal occupier in the land of Israel,” Pompeo explained. “The lie of occupation provides Israel’s enemies a means to explain away all types of aggression and violence as merely resistance to the occupation. Just listen to what they have to say in the public rhetoric.”
Behold Israel, in an article discussing the international community’s position on Israeli settlements, insisted that “you don’t have to look closely to notice that there is a different set of rules for the Jewish State of Israel.”
“Believe it or not, there is the right side of history to be on when it comes to the land of Israel and the Jewish people,” they wrote. “They are the people that God made an everlasting covenant with and included in this covenant is a specific portion of land that the international community now claims they’re ‘occupying’ as if they don’t obtain the rights to it.”
