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Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid on Tuesday warned that Israel was slowly destroying international support towards it, after the United States also joined the chorus of criticism it has come under after its recent expropriation of Palestinian territory, the biggest such land grab since the 80s.
Lapid said that the Israeli cabinet was not consulted about Sunday’s announcement regarding the expropriation of 988 acres of land in West Bank for future settlement building.
“The announcement, which wasn’t brought to the cabinet, regarding 900 acres of land for building in Gush Etzion (between Jerusalem and Hebron) harms the State of Israel”, Lapid said at an economic conference in Tel Aviv.
“Maintaining the support of the world was already challenging, so why was it so urgent to create another crisis with the United States and the world?” he asked.
The moderate Lapid alluded to the widespread international denunciation of the high civilian death toll in the Gaza Strip during the 50-day war.
Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, another moderate within the Israeli cabinet, also criticized the expropriation. Livni, who served as the chief negotiator in the aborted US-mediated peace talks with the Palestinians, said, “(the move) weakens Israel and threatens it security”.
However, Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, whose right-wing Home party elicits the support of the settler lobby, defended the announcement, and said that it was in retaliation for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens in West Bank.
“It is 120 years that the world has opposed our construction, and we’ll continue to do it”, he said, equating the settlement building with construction decades ago in what is now Israel.
The international community considers all Jewish settlements in the occupied territories illegal. Sunday’s announcement drew strong criticism from the US and the UN.
“This announcement, like every other settlement announcement Israel makes, planning step they approve, and construction tender they issue, is counterproductive to Israel’s stated goal of a negotiated two-state solution with the Palestinians.We urge the government of Israel to reverse this decision”, an official from the US State Department said.
A spokesman for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that he was “alarmed” by Israel’s new plans.
“The seizure of such a large swathe of land risks paving the way for further settlement activity, which -– as the United Nations has reiterated on many occasions -– is illegal under international law and runs totally counter to the pursuit of a two-state solution”, the spokesman said.