US reacts to ‘systematic process of land seizures’ by Israel

The United States is irked by Israel over reports that the regime is planning to build hundreds of new illegal settlement units in Palestine.

The US State Department said on Tuesday that if more settlements are to be built in the West Bank, they will serve as an obstacle to the so-called “two-state solution.”

State Department spokesman John Kirby said US officials were aware of the reports in regard to Tel Aviv’s expansionist policy.

"If true, this report would be the latest step in what seems to be a systematic process of land seizures, settlement expansions and legalizations of outposts that is fundamentally undermining the prospects for a two-state solution," Kirby said at a news briefing in Washington, DC.

Kirby’s remarks came after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the decision, saying that such activities raise “legitimate questions” over Tel Aviv’s “long-term intentions” in the West Bank.    

“The Secretary-General strongly criticizes the decision by Israeli authorities to advance plans to build some 560 housing units in the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim, as well as the advancement of plans to build 240 housing units in a number of settlements in occupied East Jerusalem,” said Ban’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, in statement released on Monday.

On Sunday, an unnamed official announced that the plans had been approved by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the minister of military affairs, Avigdor Liberman.

The official’s announcement came shortly after the release of a report by the Middle East Quartet — which is mediating the so-called peace process in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — that directly called on the Tel Aviv regime to put an end to its settlement expansion activities in the occupied Palestinian territories. 

The UN and most countries regard the Israeli settlements as illegal because the territories were captured by Israel in a war in 1967 and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid construction on occupied lands.

The presence and continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine has created a major obstacle for the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East. Palestinians want the West Bank as part of their future independent state, with East al-Quds as its capital.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds.

According to Dujarric, Israel intends to “advance plans to build some 560 housing units in the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim,” while it seeks “advancement of plans to build 240 housing units in a number of settlements in occupied East Jerusalem.”

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