Israel should build in the West Bank, even amid tensions and war - opinion

Settler leaders claim that the Israeli government has agreed to conditions on military aid set by the Biden administration.

According to the Hebrew press, settler leaders are claiming the fact that they haven’t received building permits or approvals in the past six months as proof that the Biden administration is conditioning military aid for Israel’s war against Hamas on a settlement building freeze. And it isn’t outside the realm of possibility that an American administration, even the current one, would condition military aid to Israel upon the halting of settlement building.

The current administration opposes building, and President Joe Biden himself has been against it for decades. He has even opposed Israeli building in Jerusalem, its capital. 

After a development announcement in Jerusalem in 2010, then-vice-president Biden said, “It is incumbent on both parties to build an atmosphere of support for negotiations and not to complicate them. The decision by the Israeli government to advance planning for new housing units undermines that very trust, the trust that we need right now in order to begin profitable negotiations.”

Nevertheless, I am skeptical of the settler leaders’ claims for several reasons. 

Unlike past presidents (and Biden himself when he was vice-president in the Obama administration) who demonstrated friendship and support for Israel, President Biden has framed his own administration’s support as an American interest. 

He wrote, “Today, the world faces an inflection point, where the choices we make – including in the crises in Europe and the Middle East – will determine the direction of our future for generations to come. What will our world look like on the other side of these conflicts? Will we deny Hamas the ability to carry out pure, unadulterated evil? Will Israelis and Palestinians one-day live side by side in peace with two states for two peoples? And the overarching question: Will we relentlessly pursue our positive vision for the future, or will we allow those who do not share our values to drag the world to a more dangerous and divided place?” 

Any decision made by Biden will make his position on Israel look inconsistent

Risking Israeli efforts to destroy Hamas would, therefore, be inconsistent with Biden’s framing of American support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Another factor about the claims that elicits skepticism is Biden’s long opposition to conditioning aid to Israel. 

During the 2020 presidential campaign and under great pressure from the uber-Left progressive wing of the Democratic Party to condition American military aid to Israel on halting settlement building, then-candidate Biden called these suggestions from other Democratic candidates (Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, and Bernie Sanders) “outrageous” and a “gigantic mistake.”

There’s no reason to think that now, when facing less pressure, he would reverse a position that he has consistently maintained.  

On the other hand, if the conditioning of the American military on a freeze in settlement building were the case, the US president might want to keep it quiet to avoid charges of flipping on his support of Israel support. Arab-Americans, a group whose votes the president needs in the 2024 election, would be exuberant over instituting any condition on American military aid to Israel but would be especially satisfied with the condition being a halt on settlement building.

Even with the risk of seeming to flip-flop on Israel, President Biden’s gains in Arab-American voter support would make publicizing conditioning aid worth the charges of doing so. 

The lack of publicity surrounding the placing of conditions on aid to Israel should cause doubt about the veracity of settler leaders’ claims.  

Settler leaders tend to think the worst of the United States and its presidents. They frequently see American support as a Trojan horse with untenable conditions. Trump administration officials reacted in shock to their rejection of the Trump Peace Plan, “the deal of the century,” the first American administration plan to legitimize Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria and allow for their expansion. 

The settler leaders didn’t support Trump and his plan because it called for a Palestinian state. 

Looking askew at the Biden administration’s unprecedented support of Israel – support so strong that it has garnered the praise of David Friedman, former American ambassador to Israel under Trump – is consistent with settler leaders’ usual approach to US support but is not a reliable indicator of their claims about America’s conditioning military aid to Israel.

IRRESPECTIVE OF claims of aid being conditioned, the question of whether now is the time for Israel to develop Judea and Samaria by expanding building projects is a legitimate question that should be addressed. 

Building in Judea and Samaria would antagonize the Biden administration. At a time when Israel is experiencing unprecedented support from America, is it strategic for them to create friction at this time? 

Israel is also trying to take the next steps of expanding the Abraham Accords by signing a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia. Such a deal would transform the entire Middle East and end the Arab-Israeli conflict. Since building in Judea and Samaria could upset the Saudis, a strong argument could be made against doing so until after the deal is signed. 

Since 1967, Israel has faced opposition to its expansion and development in areas it recaptured in the Six-Day War. There are always reasons not to develop Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria further. 

Yet, the State of Israel was founded with the explicit goal of the Jewish people settling their ancestral homeland, of which Judea and Samaria are the heart. Settlers are fulfilling the dream of Israel’s founders by settling parts of the land of Israel that haven’t been touched in thousands of years – if ever.

Judea and Samaria, the region that the world calls the “West Bank,” belongs to the Jewish people, and they have every right to develop the land as they please. The world will always object to the Jewish development of Judea and Samaria, but that shouldn’t halt the State of Israel’s growth. The time is always right for Israel to build and grow. 

The writer is a certified interfaith hospice chaplain in Jerusalem and the mayor of Mitzpe Yeriho, Israel. She lives with her husband and six children.