Defence minister says move ‘prevents establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel’

Israel has said it will establish 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, including the legalisation of outposts already built without government authorisation, after a security cabinet vote held in secret last week.

Israel occupied the West Bank, capturing it from Jordan, in the six-day war of 1967. Since then, successive governments have tried to permanently cement Israeli control over the land, in part by declaring swathes as “state lands”, which prevents private Palestinian ownership.

The motion was said to have been put forward by the far-right defence minister, Israel Katz, and the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who lives in the West Bank settlement of Kedumim, which is considered illegal under international law.

  • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
    6·
    3 days ago

    From now on, no one will be able to speak of an international order based on law, of mutual respect between states, or of universal principles without a deep sense of hypocrisy.

    Always has been; the West is simply waking up to it. There’s a reason most people convicted by the ICC are African.