Israel is moving forward with controversial plans to build thousands of new housing units in the occupied West Bank, splitting the territory in two, a scheme far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said would "permanently bury the idea of a Palestinian state." The E1 settlement project, frozen for decades because of vociferous international opposition, would connect Jerusalem to the settlement of Maale Adumim, making a future Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem virtually impossible. It would also split the West Bank in half, preventing the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state. Smotrich announced the pending approval of 3,401 new housing units on Thursday in a press conference held on the site of the planned construction. "They will talk about a Palestinian dream, and we will continue to build a Jewish reality," Smotrich said. "This reality is what will permanently bury the idea of a Palestinian state, because there is nothing to recognize and no one to recognize." Final approval for the plan is expected next week. Smotrich has repeatedly lobbied Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex the occupied West Bank and apply Israeli sovereignty to the entire territory. In a statement, the presidency of the Palestinian National Council blasted the new settlement plans as a "systemic plan to steal land, Judaize it, and impose biblical and Talmudic facts on the conflict." Speaker Rawhi Fattouh said the "colonial plan falls within the policy of creeping annexation" of the West Bank, which is accompanied by settler violence against Palestinians. Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under international law. But during the first Trump administration, the State Department reversed longstanding US policy and ruled settlements were "not inconsistent" with international law. The Biden administration left this new policy in place. Smotrich announced the advancement of the plan in the press conference on Thursday, presenting it as Israel's response to the recent wave of countries announcing their intention to recognize a Palestinian state. The Israeli settlement watchdog "Peace Now" blasted the advancement of the E1 plan, deeming it "deadly for the future of Israel and for any chance of achieving a peaceful two-state solution." In a statement, it said "We are standing at the edge of an abyss, and the government is driving us forward at full speed. There is a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to the terrible war in Gaza — the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel — and it will ultimately come. The government's annexation moves are taking us further away from this solution and guaranteeing many more years of bloodshed." — CNN
