At a conference of settler leaders in July, the IDF commander for the West Bank, Maj Gen Avi Bluth, said farm outposts “align well” with Israel’s security concept, “provided that this is also reflected in operational conduct, as well as ethical conduct, and in accordance with the law”.
“All of this greatly strengthens security,” he said.
Israel’s current government has so far provided 19bn shekels ($6.2bn) to expanding settlements in the West Bank, and is now seeking another 600m shekels ($196m) for settlement programmes, according to Peace Now.
The government, which includes religious-nationalist settlers among its cabinet ministers, has also lifted a 20-year ban on Israelis settling in areas around the Palestinian city of Jenin in the far north of the territory.
It is pushing ahead with construction on more than a dozen settlements there, as well as several new military sites, including one next to the refugee camp in Jenin – the first time Israel has seized land for a military site in an area put under total Palestinian control in the Oslo Accords.
Hagit Ofran from Peace Now says the rapid construction in Jenin is part of a wider race by the Israeli government to expand settlements in the West Bank before Israeli elections are held in October.
And, she says, Israel is also finding ways to funnel state money to settler outposts that were illegal under Israeli law, via allocations for roads, “security needs” or the establishment of “temporary sites” in new areas earmarked for settlement.
