JERUSALEM (AP) – Israel’s settler population in the West Bank has grown at a much higher rate than the country as a whole in the past four years, a pro-colonist group said on Wednesday, a period that coincides with acceptance unprecedented settlement activity by the Trump administration.
The West Bank Jewish Population Stats report shows the population of settlers growing about 13% since the beginning of 2017, reaching 475,481. During the same period, Israel’s population grew by about 8%, reaching almost 9.3 million, according to the government.
The group’s report, which is based on official government data, does not include annexed East Jerusalem, where more than 200,000 settlers live.
Baruch Gordon, the director of West Bank Jewish Population Statistics, downplayed the influence of US policy, saying the annual growth rate has declined in recent years, even before the coronavirus pandemic. The West Bank settler population grew by 2.62% in 2020, according to their numbers, compared with 1.7% in Israel as a whole. In 2016, the settled population grew 3.59%.
“I don’t think any American president can influence that much, because local growth depends (depends) on the Israeli government’s internal decisions about how many buildings to make or not,” he said.
Many settlers are religious Jews who tend to have larger families, driving population growth, and many Israelis are attracted to settlements because they offer more affordable housing.
Gordon expects growth to continue, even if President Joe Biden pressures Israel to control it. “The facts on the ground are stronger than any American foreign policy,” he said.
Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1967 war, and the Palestinians want both as part of their future state. Palestinians and much of the international community see settlements as illegal and as an obstacle to the creation of a viable and contiguous Palestinian state.
The settlers and their supporters see the West Bank as the biblical and historical heart of the Jewish people and are opposed to any partition.
Former President Donald Trump’s administration abandoned decades of US policy by accepting the settlements and released a plan for the Middle East in which Israel would have been able to keep them all, including smaller settlements within the occupied territory. Last year, Mike Pompeo became the first U.S. Secretary of State to visit a settlement.
The Palestinians furiously rejected the plan and Biden is likely to abandon it. He is opposed to the expansion of the settlements and said he hopes to resume peace negotiations.
By not opposing the construction of new settlements – as his predecessors on both sides did – Trump encouraged his growth, further complicating efforts to bring about a two-state solution, which is still widely seen internationally as the only way to resolve the decades-old problem Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israeli officials have put forward plans to build some 800 homes in West Bank settlements just days before Trump stepped down. Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement body, says Israel has approved or advanced the construction of more than 12,000 settlement homes in 2020, the highest number in a single year since it began recording statistics in 2012.
Israel is also moving ahead with major infrastructure projects which will link settlements more closely to their main cities and set the stage for future growth.
Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, attributed the growth of the settlements to “the previous US administration and the current Israeli government”, reiterating that they are “illegal under international law”.
One of Israel’s largest human rights groups, B’Tselem, released a report earlier this month arguing that Israel has become an “apartheid” system, partly due to the permanence of the settlements. Although the settlers are Israeli citizens, the 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under different forms of Israeli military government.
Injustice is on display during Israel’s response to the coronavirus. Settlers are included in Israel’s highly successful vaccination campaign, while Palestinians in the West Bank must rely on the Palestinian Authority, which is struggling to secure its own supply of vaccines. Israel says it is not responsible for immunizing the Palestinians, and the Palestinian Authority has not publicly asked for Israel’s help.
Israel rejects the apartheid label, noting that its own Arab population has citizenship, including the right to vote, and is being vaccinated. It is also administering vaccines to Palestinians in East Jerusalem, most of whom are permanent residents, but have no citizenship.