BUENOS AIRES – Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a reversal of the Trump administration's stance on Israeli settlements in the West Bank on Friday, saying they were “contrary to international law.”
“Our government continues to strongly oppose the expansion of settlements,” Blinken told reporters at a news conference in Argentina. “In our assessment, this only weakens Israel’s security – it does not strengthen it.”
The decision – which was also announced at the White House – was an immediate response to reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right government was planning further settlement expansion, according to a U.S. official, one of several who discussed the decision's condition Anonymity in accordance with administrative rules.
Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced plans late Thursday to approve 3,000 new settlement houses after Israeli police said Palestinian gunmen opened fire near the existing Maale Adumim settlement, killing one Israeli and wounding five. The expansion plans are part of “strengthening our eternal influence over the entire Land of Israel.”
“This is outrageous,” a former Biden official said after the Israeli government received so much support in recent months. “For Smotrich, it’s basically just an f-you to do that.”
US officials said the decision to clarify Washington's position on settlements had already been researched and planned as another of the latest moves to reflect the administration's growing unease with Israeli actions in Gaza and the West Bank – starting with the visa restrictions on settlers announced in December, which they used violence and undermined security in the West Bank.
In February, President Biden issued an executive order authorizing financial sanctions against four named settlers. This was followed a week later by a national security memorandum reminding recipients of U.S. weapons of the need to comply with U.S. and international law.
White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters in Washington just minutes after Blinken's remarks in Argentina that the decision to declare settlements illegal brings the Biden administration in line with previous U.S. administrations – except for that of Trump.
“We simply reiterate the fundamental conclusion that these settlements are inconsistent with international law,” he said. “This is a position that has been consistently held in a number of Republican and Democratic administrations – if there is an administration that is inconsistent, it was the previous one.”
The statement, which calls Israeli settlements on occupied territory illegal, returns U.S. policy to where it has been since 1978, when a State Department legal opinion declared it “inconsistent with international law.” That statement, issued under the Carter Administration, stated that “a territory that comes under the control of a belligerent occupier does not thereby become its sovereign territory.”
At the time, there were an estimated 75 Israeli settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. According to Peace Now, an Israeli organization that advocates for a two-state solution, there are currently at least 146 settlements in the West Bank, not including East Jerusalem, that the Israeli government has approved, as well as 144 that are not officially recognized.
The 1978 policy was maintained by all subsequent governments, although many preferred euphemisms such as saying that settlements were an “obstacle to peace.” In 2005, Israel withdrew its settlements from Gaza.
However, in 2019, Trump's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that the United States no longer considered settlements a violation of international law, although he never ordered a new legal opinion to be issued.
Under an unrealized Trump peace plan, Israel would have been given sovereignty over all existing settlements and the annexation of up to 30 percent of the West Bank. During his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden said his policies would be based on his commitment to a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, but did not commit to reversing Trump's actions, which included moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and the recognition of Israel's annexation belonged to the Golan Heights from Syria.
During his first visit to Israel as secretary of state in May 2021, Blinken said the Biden administration was opposed to “any steps” – including new settlements – that risked “triggering violence” or “the prospect of a return to the pursuit of two States”. Much of the new construction undertaken and proposed by the Netanyahu government is expansion of existing settlements.
In February last year, a joint statement by the United States, Palestinian, Israeli, Egyptian and Jordanian officials after a summit in the Jordanian city of Aqaba said that Israel had committed “to suspend discussion of new settlements for four months and to cease discussion.” .” Approval of all outposts for six months.”
However, immediately afterward, Smotrich announced that “there will be no halt to construction and development, not even for a day.”
Since the Hamas attacks in southern Israel on October 7, which killed around 1,200 Israelis, violence has increased exponentially in the West Bank, now home to at least 700,000 Israeli settlers. This triggered Israel's ongoing military operations in Gaza, which have killed nearly 30,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
According to the United Nations, 399 Palestinians have been killed in conflict-related incidents in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the start of the war, including 102 children, and 4,545 Palestinians have been injured, including 702 children.
During the same period, 13 Israelis, including four Israeli military personnel, were killed and 86 were injured.
The Biden administration has tried “very hard not to get involved” and called the settlements “unhelpful,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J-Street, a liberal political group on Israeli-Palestinian issues. “The last 4½ months have shown that this is not a problem that can be ignored. It will explode if you don’t do anything.”
DeYoung reported from Washington.