One of the most urgent questions for America’s Israel policy is the issue of new settlements
that Israel is planning in the West Bank.
Trump indicated today that he wants them to slow down.
— As far as settlements, I'd like to see you hold back on settlements for a little bit.
We’ll work something out, but I would like to see a deal be made—I think a deal will be made.
— That doesn’t seem to be what Netanyahu has planned.
Since Trump’s inauguration, Israel has announced 6,000 new settler units, and legalized thousands more.
Phoebe Greenwood went to the West Bank to see the new work in progress.
Israeli security forces cleared Amona, an illegal Israeli outpost in the West Bank,
after Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that it had built on privately-owned Palestinian land.
Now, Manya Hillel wants the government to build her community a brand new settlement.
— I feel that it’s up to the government.
If they want to, they can help us build a new home, a new settlement,
with a procedure than is usually takes, a couple of years,
and we’re hoping that they’ll see our pain and our anguish and that they’ll be there for us to do so.
— Prime Minister Netanyahu promised the 40 or so families evacuated from Amona
that he'd build them the first new settlement in 25 years.
He’s also announced plans for the rapid expansion of existing ones,
home to around 400,000 Israelis, but all of Israel’s West Bank settlements
are considered illegal under international law.
But Netanyahu’s coalition government includes the far-right Jewish Home party,
they reject the idea of a Palestinian state and think Israel should annex the West Bank altogether.
— The argument for complete annexation is deeply controversial in Israel.
But Netanyahu's said the thousands of newly-approved settler homes are just a taste of what’s to come.
—So there are two main avenues of establishing settlements:
one is the official avenue and one is the illegal avenue.
The official avenue is by government approvals, through planning stages…
— Lior Amihai is the director of an Israeli settlement watchdog group.
He took us to the proposed site.
This is how the new settlement is being built.
— Yes, just this hilltop over here.
— He explained that before they can break ground, the Israeli authorities have to publish
their construction plans in both Palestinian and Hebrew newspapers, to allow for any objections.
Each stage of the approval process is then signed off by the Ministry of Defense.
Lior believes that the government is trying to paper over the fact that it’s building
a completely new settlement by selling it as a new neighborhood of an established one.
— This hilltop over here, it’s distant from Shilo, which you see in the back, you see Shvut Rachel.
So it’s quite far away, but because the government of Israel
doesn’t want to get criticism for building a new settlement, it’s officially a neighborhood
of the existing settlement of Shilo.
— Shvut Rachel was created the illegal way.
Settlers started building here in 1991 and it was legalized by the government in 2011.
Outposts like this start with a few trailers on a hilltop, but can expand into a full-size community
of homes, schools and businesses in a matter of years.
Israel is obligated to provide them with roads and services.
Only in rare cases, like Amona, are they demolished.
Fawzi Haj Mohammed lived in Jalud, the closest Palestinian village to the proposed new settlement site.
Shvut Rachel was largely built on land that he owns.
— When did you hear about the new settlement that’s going to be built?
— The village council has hired a lawyer to try to block the new construction in the Israeli courts.
— Do you think the younger generations, like your sons, their kids,
do they feel that there’s any chance of stopping the settlement expansion around here?