Palestinians urge Pompeo to call off settlement visit
Planned Israeli expansion ‘will kill two-state solution’
Israeli plans to build 1,257 settlement units south of occupied Jerusalem have been condemned by Palestinian experts, who say the move will “kill the twostate solution.”
The settlement plans come on the eve of a tour of the region by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is expected to visit an Israeli settlement built on Palestinian land in Ramallah.
The new announcement is in line with Israel’s large settlement project, a plan it has tried to implement for three decades. It aims to link the settlement of Givat Hamatos, which is built on Palestinian land in the towns of Beit Safafa and Beit Jala — part of which is owned by the Lutheran Church in Jerusalem — with other settlements in the West Bank. Khalil Tafakji, a map and settlement expert, said the new plans are dangerous because they form a “link in the chain” of settlements in the Jerusalem 2020 Project, through which Israel aims to completely isolate Jerusalem from its Palestinian surroundings.
“Israel aims to establish what can be called a ‘Jewish Bethlehem’ by linking the settlement of Gilo and Jabal Abu Ghneim, and establishing about nine hotels to seal the entire closure of Jerusalem from the southern side and the towns of Sur Bahir, Beit Safafa and AlSharafa, which will completely isolated from the cities of Beit Sahour and Bethlehem,” Tafakji told Arab News.
Israel seized the areas in the 1990s and allowed the Ethiopian Jewish community to move and build there. The country has since faced several obstacles that prevented the launch the settlement project, but it is exploiting the “unlimited support” it receives from
US President Donald Trump to move forward with the ambitious plans, Palestine experts said.
“In contrast to the raging Israeli policy of demolition against Palestinian homes and facilities in Jerusalem, Israel’s plans include building more than 58,000 settlement units by 2030,” Tafakji said.
More than 600,000 settlers reside in Israeli settlements that are classified as illegal according to international law, of which about 200,000 live in settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, which Palestine views as the potential capital of a future state.
Israeli anti-settlement organization Peace Now said that the settlement project in Givat Hamatos would “severely impede the prospects of a two-state solution.”
The organization accused the Israeli government of “using the last weeks of the Trump administration to impose facts on the ground.”
A similar sentiment was expressed by Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, who said in a Monday meeting that “what is going on is an escalating and intense attack plan for the next 10 weeks, in a race against time to impose a new status quo before Trump leaves the White House.” During his four years in office, Trump showed strong and unprecedented support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and approved of Israel’s settlement projects, including the “annexation plan” to control vast swathes of land in the West Bank.
Peace Now said that settlement numbers in the Palestinian territories doubled one-and-a-half times during the Trump presidency. Pompeo’s visit to a West Bank settlement during his upcoming tour will be the first by a US secretary of state, with experts warning that it will give Israel tacit approval to continue annexation efforts.