By IAN FISHER and ISABEL KERSHNER New York Times
AMONA, West Bank – Israel approved 3,000 more housing units in the occupied West Bank late Tuesday, the largest number in a wave of new construction plans that defy the international community and that open a forceful phase in the country’s expansion into land the Palestinians claim for a future state.
Emboldened by the new Trump administration and internal battles at home, Israel announced plans for the new units in about a dozen settlements a week after approving 2,500 homes in the West Bank and 566 in East Jerusalem.
“We are in a new era, where life in Judea and Samaria goes back to its normal and proper course,” the defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said in a statement, using the biblical name for the West Bank.
The timing of the announcement seemed to be driven at least in part by concerns among some Israelis over settlement activity elsewhere: The Israeli army issued a warrant dated Monday giving 48 hours’ notice for the court-ordered evacuation of the unauthorized settler outpost of Amona, after years of wrangling.
On Wednesday, about 3,000 soldiers and police officers began an operation to evacuate residents of the settlement, which has about 40 families but is supported by many more activists.
World leaders have denounced the settlements in the West Bank, home to an estimated 400,000 Israelis, arguing that they are choking off the hopes for an agreement on two states — one for Palestinians, one for Israelis.
In December, the U.N. Security Council denounced settlement building — a position that the United States tacitly supported in the waning days of the Obama administration.
“This is a government of settlers that has abandoned the two-state solution and fully embraced the settler agenda,” said Husam Zomlot, strategic affairs adviser to Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority.
President Donald Trump seems not to share former President Barack Obama’s opposition to the settlements. Whereas the Obama administration expressed regular criticism of them, Trump has said nothing about the new construction and his administration has shown signs of tightening ties between the two countries.
The settlement announcement came hours before the beginning of the operation to evacuate Amona. The Israeli government had been working to conduct the evacuation without bloodshed, and hundreds of police officers, wearing police caps and blue fleece jackets but carrying no weapons, moved into position Wednesday morning.
At about 2 p.m., the police began evacuating settlers, ripping up makeshift barricades and smashing the windows of trailers used by activists.
As officers tried to gain entry to one house, residents responded by throwing some kind of liquid, and one man screamed, “You are supposed to protect us, not break into our homes.”
Ayelet Videl, 35, who moved from Jerusalem nine years ago, said she had packed a few bags, but not the entire house. She was waiting for a final order to leave, and left later in the day.
“I didn’t believe this terrible thing would happen,” said Videl, who had sent her four children, all born in Amona, to Ultrabet their grandparents’ house. “This is our land, this is our forefather’s land. For 50 years they’ve been related to it in a confused way. They should have declared sovereignty over it.”
Despite the evacuation, settler leaders said the day’s events represented only a minor setback in what they see as a larger battle. Shilo Adler, the head of the Yesha Council, which represents settlers in the area, said he felt that the transition to a Trump administration was an opportunity to spread settlers, actions that had been delayed in the Obama era.
“Now is the time. Now we have a historical time to build in all of Judea and Samaria,” he said, adding, “Take this very bad story, and think what we can do now, like after the rain.”
By midafternoon, the police had reported at least 10 injuries from objects being thrown at them and said that 20 “rioters” had been arrested.
The announcement Tuesday for the new settlements could help ease the pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under investigation on several fronts and is trying to push back against politicians further to the right. The education minister, Naftali Bennett, is pressing for legislation — not yet fully embraced by Netanyahu — to take the drastic step of the first annexation of a settlement, Ma’ale Adumim, just east of Jerusalem.
Netanyahu is also pushing for legislation that would retroactively legalize scores of settlement homes and outposts built on privately owned Palestinian land. Israel’s attorney general has said that the bill is illegal and that he would refuse to defend any challenges in court.
“Instead of making peace with the Palestinians, Prime Minister Netanyahu and his Cabinet spend time making peace with the settlers, which at the end of the day, is their preferred partner for the future of the Jewish state,” said Mitchell Barak, a pollster and political consultant.
Zomlot said that Netanyahu was using this time of political transition in the United States to test how the new administration’s stance might differ from that of Obama. The Israeli prime minister is to meet with Trump in Washington on Feb. 15.
There are already signs that Trump intends to be more sympathetic to Israel’s claims: He appointed as ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who opposes a two-state solution and has supported settlements.
Trump hasalso promised to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem — a move that Palestinians and Arab leaders have denounced as de facto recognition of Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem after capturing it from Jordan in the 1967 war. Trump has since said the move requires further study.
Nonetheless, Zomlot said his “working assumption” was that the Trump administration would ultimately fall more in line with past U.S. administrations, which have seen two states as the only solution.
“We are looking forward to working with this administration to find a formula for peace — the ultimate deal, as Trump called it,” he said.
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