Tagged Israeli settlements

I’m an Israeli settler. American Jews are debating my future, but here’s what they don’t understand.

A woman walks with her child in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Efrat, April 26, 2020. (David Vaaknin for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

MITZPE YERICHO, West Bank (JTA) — It’s been surreal watching from Israel as Americans discuss my future. I’ve gotten used to presidents spending years developing plans for my neighborhood and other towns in Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank — they mean well and I truly… Read more »

Settlers welcome Mike Huckabee to a Trump-style building dedication in Efrat

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee speaks at a ceremony welcoming a new neighborhood in the West Bank settlement of Efrat, Aug. 1, 2018. (Sam Sokol)

EFRAT, West Bank (JTA) — Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee laid bricks in a new neighborhood in this settlement in a ceremony Aug. 1 that took its language and cues from Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” rhetoric. During the ceremony in Efrat’s Tamar neighborhood, organizers distributed red caps bearing… Read more »

Netanyahu, a man in the middle, scrambles to give Trump a warm welcome

Air Force One arrives at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, May 22, 2017. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

  TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did his best to give Donald Trump a warm welcome when he landed Monday at Ben Gurion Airport on his first trip abroad as U.S. president. Netanyahu offered support for Trump’s stated aspiration to broker the “ultimate deal” between Israel and… Read more »

Trump the change agent looks positively traditional on Mideast peace

President Donald Trump attends a meeting on health care in the White House, March 13, 2017. (Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Trump administration rhetoric about Israeli-Palestinian peace is typical of a president who would make everything great: President Donald Trump is going to bring about a “historic” deal, the White House has said, one that would “reverberate positively throughout the region and the world.” What isn’t typical, at… Read more »

Settlement issue follows Israeli PM to Singapore, Australia

Last November settlement leaders celebrated the victory of Donald Trump over Hilary Clinton for president, expecting the departure of former President Barack Obama from the White House to usher in an unlimited period of Israeli building around Judea and Samaria. More recently, Prime Miniser Binyamin Netanyahu looked more relaxed and… Read more »

ANALYSIS Trump and Netanyahu: The mixed messages of a diplomatic lovefest

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House, Feb. 15, 2017. (Andrew Harrer/Pool/Getty Images)

  WASHINGTON (JTA) – One state. Flexibility. Two states. Hold back on settlements. Stop Iran. When President Donald Trump met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: What a press conference! But wait. In the Age of Trump, every post-event analysis requires a double take. Not so much “did he mean what… Read more »

Trump meets Netanyahu: Where it can go right, and wrong

Donald Trump, then a candidate for president, meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York, Sept. 25, 2016. (Kobi Gideon/Israeli Government Press Office)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Benjamin Netanyahu is going to stride in through the White House front door. Donald Trump is not going to grimace while Netanyahu lectures. The talk in Washington this week, at least in Israel-obsessive circles, is about how the Bibi-Donald bromance, taking center stage Feb. 15 at… Read more »

Knesset passes historic bill to legalize settlements on Palestinian land

(JTA) — The Israeli parliament passed a bill that would retroactively legalize some West Bank settlements built on private Palestinian land. Knesset lawmakers voted 60-52 in favor of the measure late Monday to legalize some 4,000 settler homes. The law, which prevents the government from demolishing the homes, comes less than a… Read more »

Despite losing Amona, Israeli settlers expect to win war for West Bank

An Israeli settler argues with police officers evacuating the West Bank outpost of Amona, Feb. 1, 2107. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

AMONA, West Bank (JTA) — In a dramatic clash with the settlement movement at this hilltop outpost, the state seemed to have won.  Over two sometimes violent days, Feb. 1 and 2, security forces evacuated the residents of Amona, along with hundreds of protesters, as ordered by Israel’s High Court of Justice. Yet… Read more »

As president, Trump less gung-ho about dramatic changes in Israel policy

President Donald Trump speaking at a luncheon at the Congress of Tomorrow Republican Member Retreat in Philadelphia, Jan. 26, 2017. In the background are Senate Majority Whip John Cronyn, left, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

  WASHINGTON (JTA) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump have been talking each other up plenty since the latter’s election upset in November. But those expecting Trump to turn his kind words and pledges on Israel into fast action may have to be patient. The… Read more »

BLOG 7 questions about the UN resolution

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, arrivies at his weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Dec. 25, 2016. (Dan Balilty/AFP/Getty Images)

  NEW YORK (JTA) — Emotions are running high following the Obama administration’s decision to allow the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution condemning Israeli settlements. Here are seven questions aimed at making sense of what went down and what it could mean moving forward. 1. Did Obama… Read more »

With U.S. abstention, Israel again forced to face reality of world’s rejection of settlements

Samantha Power, center, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, at the Security Council meeting in New York, Dec. 23, 2016. (Volkan Furuncu/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Ahead of the unknowns a Trump administration will bring to American Middle East policy, the Obama administration allowed a bracing reminderon Friday that the international community does not recognize the validity of Israel’s presence in eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank. The U.S. abstention on the U.N. Security Council… Read more »

Trump’s Israel envoy pick shakes up American Jewish status quo

Donald Trump, center, along with his attorney David Friedman, left, exit the Federal Building following their appearance in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Camden, New Jersey, Thursday, Feb. 25, 2010. (Bradley C Bower/Bloomberg News via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) -– Nearly six years ago, when President Barack Obama was set to elevate one of his top emissaries to the Jewish community to the Israel ambassadorship, Dan Shapiro asked for – and got – the endorsement of one of Obama’s fiercest pro-Israel critics. “Dan has always spoken… Read more »

As Israeli right celebrates President Trump, experts urge self-control

Researcher Emily Landau making an appearance at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, Nov. 9, 2016. (Andrew Tobin)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Right-wing Israeli politicians welcomed the election of Donald Trump with open arms. On Wednesday, Education Minister Naftali Bennett said Trump becoming the president-elect of the United States was a chance for Israel to “retract the notion of a Palestinian state.” Several politicians, including Jerusalem Mayor… Read more »

Facing peace push, Israel’s settlers present a new face to the world

Oded Revivi (Courtesy of Avi Hyman Communications)

  EFRAT, West Bank (JTA) — The Yesha Council has represented Israel’s settlement of the West Bank for nearly five decades. They’ve helped create what appears to be an irreversible reality to both critics and champions: Some 400,000 settlers live in settlements, where they enjoy their own wineries, Israeli chain stores,… Read more »

Obama weighs in on BDS settlement fight — but battle likely won’t end there

President Barack Obama signing the Trade Facilitation and Enforcement Act of 2015 at an Oval Office ceremony, Feb. 24, 2016. (Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The controversy over whether laws protecting Israel from boycotts should include West Bank settlements found its way into a presidential signing statement last week, but President Barack Obama’s decision to ignore a trade law’s requirement to oppose boycotts of Israeli settlements likely won’t settle the argument.… Read more »