With US President Donald Trump’s blessings, Israeli Jews in West Bank are hopeful that not just the opportunity to expand settlements but the possibility of annexing the West Bank in its entirely is also on the table
read more
Israeli settlers march to the settler outpost of Evyatar in West Bank. Source: Reuters
With the blessing of US President Donald Trump, Jewish settlers are hopeful of expanding their settlements in West Bank and even annexing in entirely.
Israeli settlers in West Bank are among some of the most extremist sections of the population who often go on violent rampages in the West Bank, attacking Palestinians and setting their houses and vehicles on fire.
Shortly after Trump revoked US sanctions on some settlers for violence against Palestinians imposed under the previous Joe Biden administration, Israel Ganz, the leader of a group of settler communities in the West Bank, told The Jerusalem Post that settlers are hopeful of Trump’s support in the expansion of settlements and even the annexation of West Bank.
Ganz’s statement comes around the time the United Nations (UN) has warned that even partial annexation of West Bank by Israel “would constitute a most serious violation of international law”. Referring to the actions of the Israel’s far-right in West Bank, including attacks on Palestinians, UN chief Antonio Guterres said the situation in the West Bank “continues to worsen” even as the ceasefire in Gaza offered a “ray of hope”.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 when it won control of the area after defeating Arab nations in a war. Even though the Palestinian Authority (PA), the de facto government of the Palestinians, governs West Bank partially under the Oslo Accords of 1993, Israel has the overall control and has more than 200 settlements in which hundreds of thousands of Jews live — squeezing the space of any Palestinian state in the future and encroaching upon Palestinians lands.
Thers are 132 Israeli settlements in West Banks where nearly half a million Israelis live, according to Israel Policy Forum (IPF).
While Israeli law recognises these settlements, there are more than 100 settlements of Israelis in the West Bank that even the Israeli law considers illegal, which are called ‘outposts’, as per the IPF.
Both the settlements and outposts are deemed illegal in international law.
Ganz, the Chairman of Yesha Council in West Bank, told The Post that with Trump in the United States, Israel not just has the opportunity to expand settlements but the possibility of annexing the West Bank in its entirely is also “on the table…but it will take time”.
The Yesha Council is an association of municipal bodies of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Ganz attended Trump’s inauguration and met officials of the Trump administration.
Ganz told The Post that US officials he spoke to told him that Israeli settle