While part of the international community – including France – protests measures allowing Israel to expand its control over the lands of the West Bank, the United States Embassy in Israel will offer diplomatic services in a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank on Friday.
On Tuesday, the embassy located in Jerusalem announced that American citizens living in the settlement of Efrat will be able to complete procedures to obtain their passports. This so-called “settlement” colony, located 12 km south of Jerusalem, between the cities of Bethlehem and Hebron, has around 12,000 residents. The urbanization of Efrat has been organized and funded since 2019 with the aim of surrounding Bethlehem.
According to the embassy, this diplomatic-administrative initiative is part of the “Liberty 250” program aimed at facilitating access to services for all American citizens. Consular events will be held “in the coming months” in the Palestinian city of Ramallah, in the Beitar Illit settlement in the West Bank, as well as in the cities of Jerusalem, Haifa, Netanya, and Beit Shemesh.
Une violation du droit international
This decision, which legitimizes Israeli policy, breaks with decades of American foreign policy, which viewed the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank as an obstacle to peace. Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that he would not allow his Israeli ally to annex the West Bank.
“We welcome the important decision of the American embassy to extend its consular services to Efrat, in Judea-Samaria,” the biblical name for the West Bank, said Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.
On the contrary, Xavier Abu Eid, a former spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization, stated on social media: “Five months after President Trump claimed to be against annexation, his representatives on the ground are providing services inside Israeli colonies, de facto treating the entire territory as part of Israel. We are normalizing annexation step by step.”
For the Resistance Commission against Colonization and the Wall, which is part of the Palestinian Authority, this is “a clear violation of international law and blatant favoritism towards the occupying authorities,” referring to Israel. It has called on Washington to reverse its decision.
As for Hamas, which demanded “deterrent sanctions” on Monday against Israeli expansionism in Palestinian lands, it denounced “a dangerous measure that supports the Judaization plans carried out by Israel in the West Bank.”
