In the government, settlement affairs will be transferred to the far-right minister and former settlement activist Bezalel Smotrich.
The United States is concerned about Israel’s plans to build thousands of new homes for Jewish settlers in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank.
Israel is planning to issue more than 4,500 building permits in various parts of the West Bank. The Israeli government also decided on Sunday to ease the process of approving settlement construction.
Most countries consider it illegal for Israel to expand Jewish settlement in the territories it occupied in 1967. Settlements are one of the central disputes in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The US government notesthat the construction of permanent settlements in the occupied territory makes it difficult to achieve a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and is an obstacle to peace.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government, which came to power in January, has already approved the construction of more than 7,000 apartments in the West Bank, many of them deep in Palestinian territory, says, among others, the British newspaper The Guardian.
The decision on building permits was transferred to the far-right minister
The construction permit process in settlements is simplified so that political approval for permits is required in only two steps, whereas previously it was required in four steps, says the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
In addition, the matter is transferred to the Minister of Finance and Defense of Bezalel Smotrich responsibility. Smotrich is a far-right former settlement activist who supports the annexation of the West Bank to Israel.
– We will continue to develop the settlements and strengthen Israel’s grip on the region, Smotrich said, according to The Guardian.
Haaretz commented in his editorialthat the previous 27-year-old system sometimes led to the blocking of building plans.
Now, according to Haaretz, the settlers got what they wanted. When Smotrich got the decision-making power, the colonists can decide on the plans among themselves.
– Smotrich and the settlers understood very well that the Netanyahu government’s dependence on the extreme right opened up a historic opportunity for them, and they are taking advantage of every moment to take more and more Palestinian lands, Haaretz reports.
Both the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza oppose the decision. On the other hand, Hamas, which controls Gaza, says that it does not give Israel the right to the land of the Palestinians, but that you oppose it by all means.