Pattern of defiance: Israel expands settlements in face of Western pressure

Move to expand illegal settlements in the West Bank a challenge to Western allies unwilling to take serious steps to end occupation.

Israel’s international allies are growing louder in their condemnation of its war on Gaza and its continued construction of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

United Nations experts, human rights groups and legal scholars have all previously told media that Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza and committing abuses that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity in the West Bank.

And yet less than two weeks after receiving a stern warning from its Western allies, Israel approved 22 illegal settlements in the West Bank, amounting to what has been described as the largest land grab since Israeli and Palestinian leaders inked the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993.

“Israel is all about showing [the world] who calls the shots. They are saying … you can condemn us all you want, but in the end, you will bow down to us and not the other way around,” said Diana Buttu, a legal scholar and political analyst focused on Israel and Palestine.

The Oslo Accords were ostensibly aimed at creating a Palestinian state, including the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital.

However, in practice, Israel has continued to expand illegal settlements and render the two-state solution impossible, analysts told media.

Last year, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, warned that a new illegal settlement would be built for every country that recognises a Palestinian state.

The announcement came after Spain, Norway, and Ireland took the symbolic step in May 2024.

“I certainly think there is a pattern where Israel responds to pressure regarding its occupation – or anything else – by announcing settler expansion,” said Omar Rahman, an expert focused on Israel and Palestine for the Middle East Council for Global Affairs.

“We see that pattern repeated over and over again,” he told media.

As global pressure mounts against Israel’s war on Gaza, Israel has continued to test the patience of its allies.

Troubling pattern

On May 21, Israeli troops fired warning shots at a group of European, Asian and Arab diplomats who were on an official mission to assess the humanitarian crisis in Jenin refugee camp, which has been subjected to a months-long attack and siege by the Israeli army since the start of the year.

“I don’t know where the red line is. It is clear that there is no red line,” said Buttu.

After Zionist militias ethnically cleansed some 750,000 Palestinians to make way for the state of Israel in 1948 – an event referred to as the “Nakba” or catastrophe – Israel has increasingly annexed and occupied the little that remains of Palestinian land.

Annexation of the occupied West Bank has accelerated in recent years thanks to far-right settlers who occupy positions in the Israeli government, said Khaled Elgindy, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.

He believes Israel was always planning to approve the 22 illegal settlements irrespective of the joint statement issued by France, the UK and Canada, as it fit in with the state’s ultimate goal of expanding Jewish settlement of the occupied West Bank.

“Nobody can really think that if those countries didn’t issue an announcement that [further] annexation wasn’t going to happen. Of course, it was going to happen,” he told media.

Rahman, from the Middle East Council, believes Israel’s tactic of announcing pre-planned settlement expansion in the face of Western pressure simply aims to dissuade its allies from taking concrete action.

He suspects Canada, the UK and France will likely not slap on targeted sanctions against Israeli officials, as they have threatened to do, instead using the argument that any moves against Israel will lead to a backlash against Palestinians.

“[Canada, UK and France] may say they are acting for the preservation of the two-state solution by not doing anything to save the two-state solution,” Rahman told media.

Analysts believe that sanctions on Israel would be the only way to rescue the two-state solution and end Israel’s war on Gaza, but accept that comprehensive sanctions against the Israeli state would still be unlikely at this stage.

Instead, Western countries like Canada, France and the UK may target sanctions at the far-right ministers most associated with pro-settler policies, Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.