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Benjamin Netanyahu in front of an Israeli flag
Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to rally his nationalist base in the run-up to a third general election in 12 months. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images
Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to rally his nationalist base in the run-up to a third general election in 12 months. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images

Netanyahu announces new settlements days before Israeli election

This article is more than 4 years old

Plan for 3,500 homes in West Bank is seen as barrier to any future Palestinian state

Benjamin Netanyahu has announced he will move ahead with a highly controversial plan to build settlements east of Jerusalem, in an apparent offering to hardline nationalist voters less than a week before a general election.

Israel’s prime minister said he would reopen the long-dormant project to build 3,500 homes for Jewish settlers in one of the most sensitive areas of the occupied West Bank.

The blueprint for the 12 sq km (4.6 sq mile) site, named E1, was drafted in 1995 but has been repeatedly frozen by successive Israeli governments after strong international condemnation. It would expand the large settlement of Maale Adumim to in effect connect it with Jerusalem.

E1 settlement map

Palestinians and their global backers argue the plan would virtually cut the West Bank into two enclaves and completely encircle Palestinian neighbourhoods in the holy city. It has long been seen as an impassable barrier to any viable future Palestinian state. Upwards of 2,000 Bedouin people living in E1 could also be displaced.

“I have given instructions to immediately publish … the plan to build 3,500 housing units in E1,” Netanyahu said in a speech on Tuesday. “This had been delayed for six or seven years.”

On Monday, Israelis will vote in a Knesset election in which the rightwing leader – the longest-serving in the country’s history – hopes to emerge victorious with backing from settlers and their supporters.

He will need to win big to guarantee his political future. Two inconclusive elections in the past 12 months have resulted in stalemates, with neither Netanyahu nor his main rival, Benny Gantz, able to form a government.

Bedouin houses in the E1 area, with East Jerusalem behind, viewed from the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim. Photograph: Jim Hollander/EPA

To rally his base, Netanyahu made similar expansionist pledges before both votes. In April, he said he would annex all current settlements, and in September, he promised to go further, by claiming sovereignty over a third of the entire West Bank.

The US presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama both objected to the E1 plan. In 2012, Israel resurrected the idea as a retaliatory measure to the UN recognition of Palestine. That move was halted following a diplomatic crisis in which the UK, France, Sweden, Spain and Denmark summoned the respective Israeli ambassadors to their countries.

It is unclear if there will be a similar response this time. Donald Trump’s administration has backed many of Israel’s claims to the Palestinian territories. While the UK government has repeated that settlements are illegal, it has also praised Trump’s intentions for the region.

Senior Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi said Netanyahu’s plans for settlements in and around Jerusalem “leave no room for doubt about Israel’s agenda for permanent occupation”.

She went on to accuse many world governments of choosing to “cower away from the Trump administration” while issuing only “hollow statements” of opposition to the Israeli occupation. “It is time to call out this hypocrisy and double standard.”

More on this story

More on this story

  • Israel's opposition head Benny Gantz wins support to form government

  • Israel's Arab parties make historic gains as election support surges

  • Israel election: Netanyahu begins coalition talks

  • How Netanyahu got his electoral swagger back amid corruption cases

  • Israel election 2020: latest results

  • Israel's third election in a year: all you need to know

  • Israel in limbo as weary voters go to polls for third time in year

  • Netanyahu backtracks on Israeli plan for swift Palestinian land grab

  • 'Do not despair of losing so often' – Lea Tsemel, the Israeli lawyer who defends Palestinians

  • Netanyahu trial to begin on 17 March, says Israeli court

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