Israeli Settlement Building Soared 40% in 2014

Highest Levels in 'At Least a Decade'

It probably shouldn’t be a huge surprise for anyone whose been keeping track of the news out of Israel, but Peace Now is reporting that settlement construction soaring in the occupied West Bank in 2014.

It makes sense, since seemingly every couple weeks of peace talks early in the year was capped off with Netanyahu announcing a new expansion to try to placate his far right coalition members, and those announcements started being presented as spite after the peace talks collapsed.

Peace Now says 3,100 units began construction in 2014, and 4,485 others were tendered, a 40% increase over 2013 and the “record high for at least a decade.”

Nearly 10% of the construction, 287, were illegal even under Israeli law, though Netanyahu has generally not enforced the regulations on illegal settlement expansion.

The Israeli law isn’t particularly relevant from an international perspective, as settlements as such are flat out illegal and a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.