State Department ‘Deeply Troubled’ About Israel’s Plan to Build New Apartments in Judea and Samaria

The Israeli government has announced that it will on June 26 meet to give the go-ahead to the building of about 4,500 new apartments in existing cities and towns in Judea and Samaria. That would bring the total to 7,000 apartments for this year. These housing units are meant to accommodate the “natural growth” of the population. Couples have children – Israeli Jews have the highest fertility rate of any people in the O.E.C.D. countries — the children grow up, get married, and have children of their own. More apartments are then needed. Nothing mysterious or sinister about it. But this is Israel, which cannot make a move without causing an international ruckus, with micro-managing clever elsies and hostile buttinskys at the U.N. and ministries of foreign affairs, denouncing the teeny-tiny state because it dares to build more housing for its people.

Now the Bidenites have joined in, with the State Department announcing it is “deeply troubled” about Israel’s plans to build a few thousand apartments. The story is here: “State Department ‘deeply troubled’ as Israel fast tracks Judea and Samaria construction,” Israel Hayom, June 19, 2023:

The US State Department said it was “deeply troubled” by the move, and called on Israel to return to dialogue aimed at de-escalation.

What “dialogue” is that which Israel is supposed to ”return to”? A “dialogue” with Hamas, that continues to insist that “Palestine will be free/From the river to the sea” when its fighters finally destroy the Jewish state, as called for in the Hamas charter? A “dialogue” with Palestinian Islamic Jihad, that recently fired 1,400 missiles at Israel during Operation Arrow and Shield, which ended in a humiliating defeat, but still vows to continue its war on the Jews until their state is crushed? Should Israel “return to a dialogue” with the Palestinian Authority, that has in recent years shown no interest in a real “dialogue” with Israel, but is engaged in waging a propaganda war, aiming to force Israel back within the 1949 armistice lines that would leave the Jewish state with only a nine-mile-waist at Qalqilya? This “ongoing dialogue” between Israel and the Palestinians doesn’t exist; it’s a figment of Foggy Bottom’s collective imagination.

And if the State Department wants to promote “de-escalation” between Israel and the Palestinians, it should demand that the PA stop its “Pay-for-Slay” program that rewards past, and incentivizes future, terrorism. That is the single move that might begin, in Israeli minds, to establish a modicum of trust in the PA. But it will never happen, not as long as Mahmoud Abbas is alive; he’s told the world he will continue to support “Pay-for-Slay” even “with my last coin.”

As has been longstanding policy, the United States opposes such unilateral actions that make a two-state solution more difficult to achieve and are an obstacle to peace,” department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.

But what if the Bidenites are wrong? What if those apartments are not an “obstacle to peace,” but will make “peace” — the absence of war — more likely? What if the more apartments in Judea and Samaria that are built for Jews, the more unlikely is it that Israel will agree to transfer that territory to a future Palestinian state? And what if the only sure way to secure peace is not through an Israeli surrender of territory, but through deterrence, which means Israel must hold onto territory, in order to be perceived by its enemies as overwhelmingly stronger than they are, so that they are not tempted to attack? During the Cold War, deterrence helped keep the peace between the Soviet Union and the United States, and it can work, as well, to keep a major war from breaking out between Israel and its Palestinian enemies.

Since entering office in January, Netanyahu’s Coalition has approved over 7,000 new housing units in Judea and Samaria. It also amended a law to clear the way for Israelis to return to four settlements that had previously been evacuated.

In response to the decision, the Palestinian Authority said it would boycott a meeting of the Joint Economic Committee with Israel scheduled for Monday. The Hamas terror group also condemned the move, saying it will “resist it by all means.”

As usual, the Palestinian Authority is cutting off its nose to spite its face. It is the PA that will be the loser if it fails to attend a meeting of the Joint Economic Committee, which was set up largely as a way for Israel to help the Palestinians repair their ravaged economy. Israel is doing the PA a favor in holding these meetings; the Jewish state’s economy is booming and continues to move from strength to strength in spectacular fashion. If the Palestinians don’t care to benefit from Israeli assistance by showing up at these meetings, too bad.

Our State Department officials need to read over the Mandate for Palestine yet again. They will find therein the League of Nations’ instructions to the holder of the Mandate, Great Britain. To wit: in Article 6, the Mandatary (G.B.) is instructed to “facilitate Jewish immigration” to Palestine and to “encourage close settlement by Jews on the land.” What land? All the land that was included in the territory covered by the Mandate, which extended from just beyond the Golan in the north to the Red Sea in the south, and from the Jordan River in the east to the Mediterranean in the west. Israel’s right to that territory “from the river to the sea” was not extinguished when the League of Nations came to an end; its successor organization, the United Nations, was obligated, under Article 80 of the U.N. Charter, to carry to their proper conclusion any still-existing mandates. It is true that Jordan seized Judea and Samaria (which it renamed “the West Bank” in 1950), but its claim of sovereignty over that territory was recognized by only two countries; Jordan was never more than a military occupier. When Israel won Judea and Samaria in the Six-Day War, this did not create new rights for the Jewish state, but allowed it to at long last assert its pre-existing rights.

In building settlements throughout Judea and Samaria, Israel has greatly enhanced its security. By its possession of the Jordan Valley, it now controls the invasion route from the east, while the five main settlement blocs, built just beyond the Green Line, are like a single stout wall defending Jerusalem.

The State Department should recognize Israel’s claim, based on the Mandate for Palestine, to Judea and Samaria. That Mandate, in turn, was created by the League of Nations in recognition of the 3,500 years of Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel, the Land of Israel, that the Romans renamed “Palestine.” And instead of saying it is “deeply troubled” by Israel making good on its claim under the Mandate, by building a few thousand more apartments in Judea and Samaria this year, the Bidenites ought to remain silent, resisting the temptation to scold Israel for enforcing its rights and at the same time, strengthening its ability, through deterrence, to prevent a major war. Instead those Bidenites ought to quietly let it be known that Washington hopes the Palestinians will start talking to the Jordanians about the creation of an enlarged Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine, encompassing present-day Jordan, the Gaza Strip, and Areas A and B in Judea and Samaria,, where more than 90% of the Palestinians in that territory now live. Such an outcome just might work.