New Settlement ‘Buries the Idea of a Palestinian State,’ Says Israeli Minister

Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said on Thursday that a new settlement in the West Bank, east of Jerusalem, “finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state.”

Smotrich visited the area, near the existing Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, on Thursday and said the new development, known only as E1, would get final approval later this month.

He said: “This reality finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state, because there is nothing to recognize and no one to recognize. Anyone in the world who tries today to recognize a Palestinian state will receive an answer from us on the ground.”

About 700,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank—known by Israel as Judea and Samaria—alongside about 2.7 million Palestinians.

On Aug. 6, the objections sub-committee of the Higher Planning Council of the Civil Administration, the Israeli body which governs the West Bank, rejected the last of the petitions by activists, including Peace Now, who had sought to prevent its construction.

The plan is due to receive final approval by the Higher Planning Council on Aug. 20, after 20 years of controversy.

On Thursday, Smotrich praised U.S. President Donald Trump and the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, as “true friends of Israel as we have never had before.”

Smotrich is the leader of the Religious Zionist Party, a member of Netanyahu’s coalition government, which draws significant support from Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not publicly comment on the E1 settlement plan.

The West Bank has been occupied by Israel since 1967, when it conquered the area from Jordan during the Six-Day War.

Israel maintains that it has the right to settle its citizens in the area.

The United Nations (U.N.) General Assembly and the Security Council have passed numerous resolutions condemning Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, most recently in September 2024, when the U.N. called for Israel to withdraw its military, stop all new settlement activity, and evacuate all settlers.

On Aug. 15, Germany—which has been a close ally of Israel during the conflict with Hamas, which began on Oct. 7, 2023—called on Israel to stop the building of new settlements in the West Bank.

Germany Criticizes Israel

In a statement, the German foreign ministry said, “The federal government firmly rejects the Israeli government’s announcements regarding the approval of thousands of new housing units in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.”

The statement said, “Planning for the E1 settlement and the expansion of Ma’ale Adumim would further restrict the mobility of the Palestinian population in the West Bank, effectively divide the West Bank into two halves and cut East Jerusalem off from the rest of the West Bank.”

East Jerusalem is within the 1967 borders of the West Bank, but Israel considers it part of the city of Jerusalem, which it has declared as its capital.

In 2020, Trump formally recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The Palestinian Authority is based in Ramallah, which is 14 miles from East Jerusalem, and the E1 settlement would be built between the two areas.

Israel proposes to build new alternative roads for the Palestinians, which would involve a detour around E1, adding considerable time to the journey.

Ahmed Al-Deek, the political adviser to the Palestinian minister of foreign affairs, Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, told The Associated Press that the E1 settlement is a “colonial, expansionist, and racist move.”

He said, the Israeli government’s plans “undermine any possibility of establishing a Palestinian state on the ground,” and “separate its southern part from the center and the north.”

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the organization’s Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also condemned the announcement.

Dujarric said the E1 settlement breached international law and would “further entrench the occupation, fuel tensions, and systematically erode the viability of a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution.”

Whilst the majority of nations recognise the existence of a Palestinian state, most western European nations, along with the United States, have refused to do so.

Hoping to pressure Israel over the current situation in Gaza, Britain, France, Canada, and Australia all recently shifted stance, saying that they will recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September.

Israel has said that this amounts to capitulating to the terrorist actions of Hamas.

In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network on Thursday, Netanyahu said: “Before World War II, the Western countries tried to appease Hitler. Well, today the West is telling Israel, ‘Just give the Palestinians a piece of Israel and they’ll make peace with you.'”

“No, they won’t. For the last century, they’ve been offered a state of their own. And they refused, because their goal is not to create a state for themselves, it’s to destroy the state of ours, the Jewish state. That’s their national goal.”

On July 24, after France announced it would recognize a Palestinian state, Netanyahu said on X: “A Palestinian state in these conditions would be a launch pad to annihilate Israel—not to live in peace beside it. Let’s be clear: the Palestinians do not seek a state alongside Israel; they seek a state instead of Israel.”

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.