Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday signed off on a major expansion of illegal Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and vowed that there would never be a Palestinian state.
“We are going to fulfill our promise that there will be no Palestinian state, this place belongs to us,” Netanyahu said at a signing ceremony that took place at the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, according to The Times of Israel.
The agreement Netanyahu signed authorizes construction for the controversial E1 settlement plan, which was put on ice for decades due to international opposition. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a West Bank settler himself, recently announced that Israel would push through the project to “bury” the idea of a Palestinian state.
At the signing ceremony, Smotrich said Israel would soon be celebrating the annexation of the West Bank. “The prime minister told me, ‘I’m staying here to hear what you have to say, and I know what you intend to say,” he said.
“Mr. Prime minister, all of us, soon, will thank you and congratulate and celebrate together the application of sovereignty throughout Judea and Samaria,” he added, using the biblical name for the Palestinian territory.
The signing ceremony comes as the Israeli government is considering annexing parts of the West Bank in response to several Western countries moving to recognize a Palestinian state. Smotrich recently outlined a proposal for annexing 82% of the West Bank and leaving six Palestinian population centers isolated as islands, a plan he said aims for “maximum territory and minimum Arab population.”
US officials have made clear that the Trump administration won’t oppose any steps Israel takes to annex Palestinian territory in the West Bank. “The US has never asked Israel to not apply sovereignty,” US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told Israeli media last week. “I have repeatedly stated that the US respects Israel as a sovereign nation and will not tell Israel what to do. This is also what Secretary Rubio has said as recently as this week.”
