Peace Now says government quietly established new West Bank settlement

The Peace Now settlement watchdog says the government has established a new settlement in the heart of the West Bank by greenlighting a project for 189 homes in the illegal outpost of Zayit Ra’anan.

Zayit Ra’anan is considered a neighborhood of the Talmon settlement in the central West Bank, even though 2.5 kilometers separates the two.

The project for 189 homes was greenlit in a private meeting of the Civil Administration’s Higher Planning Subcommittee in February, Peace Now reveals.

“The establishment of new settlements as neighborhoods of existing settlements is a familiar method of the government and is done in order to reduce criticism, both international and local, towards the move,” the left-wing group writes in a statement.

While the international community considers all settlements illegal, Israel differentiates between settlement homes built and permitted by the Defense Ministry on land owned by the state, and illegal outposts built without necessary permits, often on private Palestinian land. However, outposts are sometimes established with the state’s tacit approval, and successive governments have sought to legalize at least some of the 100-plus unrecognized communities as a result.

The 189 homes will sit on 50 acres that was seized by the state under absentee property laws. The land is believed to originally belong to Palestinian farmers in the nearby villages of Ras Karkar and Deir Ammar, who were barred by Israel from it.

“From a political perspective, the establishment of the settlement of Zayit Raanan is part of a plan to create a ‘settlement bloc,’ in an area adjacent to Ramallah from the west, with the aim of impeding the expansion of the Palestinian city and other Palestinian villages and towns around the area. Virtually, the bloc creates Palestinian enclaves surrounded by settlements from almost every direction, which negatively impacts Palestinian development and access to their lands,” Peace Now says.