‘Now is the time to apply our sovereignty to these communities,’ says former Israeli justice minister of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories

This article is more than 10 months old

This article is more than 10 months old

Washington’s announcement that it no longer considers Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank illegal has elicited a wave of euphoria from Israeli rightwing figures and indignation from Palestinians.

Senior Israeli officials and settler groups said the shift in US policy meant the time was ripe for Israel to take permanent control of the settlements – a move that is largely seen as an end to Palestinian aspirations of statehood.

The former Israeli justice minister and pro-settlement hardliner Ayelet Shaked thanked Donald Trump and the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, in a tweet. “The Jewish People have the legal and moral right to live in their ancient homeland,” she wrote. “Now is the time to apply our sovereignty to these communities,” she added.

The Yesha Council, the main Israeli settler organisation, also called on the Israeli government to immediately claim sovereignty over settlements.

Q&A Why are Israeli settlements controversial? Show Hide Hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers live in outposts in the West Bank, which Israel’s military captured in a 1967 war and continues to rule, controlling the lives of more than 2.5 million Palestinians. Israelis living in the settlements, some as large as small cities, have full citizenship rights and can travel freely between the two territories, while West Bank Palestinians live under Israeli military rule and cannot vote in Israeli elections. World powers overwhelmingly consider the settlements illegal under international law, many of them built on land confiscated from Palestinian families and squeezing them into ever-smaller enclaves. Palestinians want all settlements to be removed. They say the settlements’ presence on land they claim for a future independent Palestine makes the reality of such a state almost impossible.

In September, days before he was due to run in a national election, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he intended to annex Jewish settlements, but gave only a vague timeframe. His political future may also be in jeopardy after an inconclusive election threw Israeli into political paralysis.

Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian official, said the US had neither the “right nor agency to rewrite international law” and was spreading lawlessness.

“Israeli settlements are a grave violation of international law, including international humanitarian law. They also constitute a war crime … These are solid facts that the Trump administration cannot alter or unravel,” she said.

The US policy shift comes just a week since the European court of justice ruled products made in Israeli settlements must be properly labelled, a move that was widely decried in Israel.

Israel’s transportation minister, Betzalel Smotrich, head of a pro-settler party, said before the US announcement, which was expected, that it would be “an appropriate response to the hypocritical decision by the European court”.

Since he entered office, Trump has repeatedly made moves welcomed by Israeli hardline nationalists that have been interpreted as detrimental to Palestinians and their hopes for a future state.

The US president recognised the contested city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, slashed humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees and closed their diplomatic offices in Washington. Trump’s ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, has also been a longtime supporter of the settlement movement.

“The Trump administration been giving everything to Netanyahu as a gift over the course of the past nearly three years,” said Diana Buttu, a former adviser to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. “This was next on Netanyahu’s wishlist.”

But Buttu, who has been involved in political negotiations since 2000, added that US policy had been moving in this direction for decades.

“This isn’t just about Trump, as bad as Trump is, as terrible as a president he is,” she said. “We saw this all happening through the negotiations; there was a continued attempt to water down the illegality of settlements. Israel got the message that might is right.”