Last Tuesday, in violation of international law, the Israeli government approved 2,600 housing units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem during the final hours of Donald Trump’s presidency – a sign that Tel Aviv senses a new direction in U.S. policy during President Biden’s administration.
The Associated Press, citing the anti-settlement/non-government organization “Peace Now,” reported about 800 of these homes are deep inside the West Bank. Al Jazeera reported the watchdog said it was a “mad scramble to promote as much settlement activity as possible until the last minutes before the change of the administration in Washington.”
“By doing so [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu is signaling to the incoming president that he has no intention of giving the new chapter in US-Israel relations even one day of grace, nor serious thought to how to plausibly resolve our conflict with the Palestinians,” a statement said, according to the report.
A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said a statement that Israel’s settlement policy “and theft of Palestinian land – with the support and bias of the current US administration – will not bring security and stability.”
The Al Jazeera report said Trump broke with international norms in 2018 when he said the settlements would not be considered an affront on international law. The report pointed out that Antony Blinken, Biden’s nominee for secretary of state, has said the only way to ensure Israel’s future “as a Jewish, democratic state and to give the Palestinians a state to which they are entitled is through the so-called two-state solution.”
Earlier this month, Israel launched an air attack on Syria that killed dozens of Syrian soldiers and reduced a weapons depot and other sites to rubble. The Jerusalem Post reported that Tel Aviv carried out more than 1,000 airstrikes aimed at various targets within the past five years, but the ferocity of the recent assault in the eastern part of the country stands apart. It also occurred in the final weeks of the Trump presidency. Reports indicated the U.S. played a supportive role in the strikes.
TREND FORECAST: We forecast Israel will escalate tensions with Syria, Iran, Lebanon, and Palestine. As Gerald Celente has long noted, “When all else fails, they take you to war.”
In March, Israel will hold its fourth national election in less than two years. As we have reported, since November 2019, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been under the pressure of a criminal indictment on charges of fraud and bribery, and he has twice failed in previous elections to put together a winning coalition.
Since last summer, thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets, primarily in Jerusalem near Netanyahu’s residence, demanding he step down over corruption charges.
Netanyahu’s priority is to retain his position as prime minister since there is a legal loophole he can jump through that allows an indicted prime minister to remain in office. Once in office, he would introduce legislation to stop his trial from moving forward.
Should military exchanges escalate, Israel will focus on the war drums beating rather than worsening economic conditions and/or corruption charges.
TRENDPOST: Israel took control of the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war.
Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. They violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 that states, “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
The U.N. Security Council, the U.N. General Assembly, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Court of Justice, and the High Contracting Parties to the Convention have all affirmed the Fourth Geneva Convention applies, that this is occupied territory, and Israeli settlements there are illegal.
