A new Israeli government effort to build settlements near Jerusalem could lead to another uptick in Israeli-Palestinian tensions, and there’s little indication the Trump administration will use its influence to limit rising instability.
Israel’s housing ministry opened bidding this week for companies to build more than 1,200 housing units in the West Bank’s E1 zone, part of occupied Palestinian territory where Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. Constructing Israeli homes in the region would block a key route between the north and south sections of the territory and separate it from East Jerusalem, where more than 300,000 Palestinians live and where diplomats have long envisioned a capital for a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
U.S. allies quickly condemned the move and suggested action to stop the land grab. Insiders expect a far more muted American response.
When NOTUS asked a U.S. official who works on Middle East policy about the chances of the Trump administration blocking the E1 move, the official responded: “Zero.”
Trending
The U.S. embassy in Jerusalem is “in lockstep” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, said the official, who was not authorized to speak on the record.
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment on the development, but told Axios on Friday that “the U.S. does not support Israel annexing the West Bank.”
President Donald Trump has generally aligned with Netanyahu on other issues in the U.S.-Israel relationship, like a joint war on Iran and a U.S.-dominated effort for the future of Gaza. But this term, his team has played a smaller role in the status of Jerusalem and discussions over the West Bank than past U.S. presidents of both parties, and even the first Trump administration.
Critics of Trump’s approach say it is dominated by allegiance to right-wing forces in Israel who support the settlement endeavor. They predict a hands-off acceptance of Israel’s moves will produce even more chaos in the Middle East, along with domestic anger as both Republicans and Democrats become more skeptical of America’s role in controversial Israeli policies.
“The E1 settlement is a clear violation of international law and purposefully slams the door on the already narrowing prospects for a viable Palestinian state. That’s why – until now – American presidents of both parties have worked to stop it,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat who has led congressional scrutiny of Israel over its policies in Gaza and beyond, told NOTUS in an email. “Building it will condemn Israel to a future as an apartheid, pariah state.”
Bids to develop E1 are due by Oct. 19, and opponents of the move hope international pressure will torpedo the plan before then.
“We are sixty days from the point of no return,” Terrestrial Jerusalem, an Israeli nonprofit, argued in a report this week. The group said Netanyahu could cancel the effort until that date, but afterward, “developers, banks and financial institutions will hold binding contracts.”
The foreign ministers of a host of countries — the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the European Commission, the Netherlands, Canada, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Belgium, Spain, Austria and Greece — issued a joint statementurging the government of Israelnot to drive “a wedge through the West Bank.”
The governments called the decision particularly concerning amid already-heightened conflict, citing record violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinian civilians and property, and hinted at potential punishment. The United Kingdom and the European Union are reportedly considering sanctions on Israel over its settlement policy.
But in discussions about Jerusalem, the U.S. has “evaporated,” said Daniel Seidemann, the founder of Terrestrial Jerusalem, which tracks developments in what it calls the “volcanic core” of Israeli-Arab conflicts.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister and himself a settler in the West Bank, last month led a group of right-wing Israelis into Jerusalem’s most sensitive site, the Haram al-Sharif compound, to pray. Non-Muslim prayer is barred there under a decades-old “status quo” between Israel and the religious authority ostensibly in charge of the compound, linked to the government of neighboring Jordan. Known to Jews as the Temple Mount, the site is also holy in Judaism, but Jewish prayer is meant to be restricted to its Western Wall section.
Changes to that agreement could risk huge backlash. On Aug. 5, Jordan convened an emergency meeting of ministers from Arab and Muslim states over the issue, citing an “imminent” threat to the arrangement.
For years, American diplomats worked to sustain the agreement over the Temple Mount, usually through quiet mediation between Israel and Jordan, another U.S. ally.
“I can point out probably dozens of times in which Netanyahu over the last 30 years was about to do something outrageous and I would get the United States to engage and explain what kind of argument to use with Netanyahu and he would back off,” Seidemann said. Now, “the status quo has all but collapsed and the United States is gone.”
Still, in an X post on Friday, Seidemann expressed cautious optimism the E1 step might prove a bridge too far.
The U.S. position on Jerusalem began shifting significantly during Trump’s first presidency. Unlike his predecessors and most world powers, he recognized the city as Israel’s capital without acknowledging Palestinians’ claim to it, and closed the American consulate for Palestinians there. President Joe Biden promised to reverse both moves but did not do so.
In Trump’s second term, he closed the Office of Palestinian Affairs at the American Embassy in Jerusalem and appointed deeply pro-Israel figures to key positions, including U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.
Previously, that office could develop warnings and research for policymakers in Washington without needing approval from the ambassador, who is usually focused on sustaining U.S.-Israel intimacy, said Mike Casey, a former American diplomat who quit the State Department in protest over the Gaza war in 2024 after serving for nearly four years in Jerusalem.
He pointed to past U.S. efforts to document the effects of Israeli policies. Among them: sending a Muslim staffer to try to access prayers at the Haram al-Sharif compound to record how he was treated after reports by Palestinians that they faced abuse from Israeli guards there.
The current U.S. official said policy is heavily influenced by Huckabee adviser David Milstein, who has been accused of promoting Israeli narratives and silencing colleagues. Milstein is the stepson of the Netanyahu-aligned conservative radio host Mark Levin, an informal adviser to Trump.
“Nobody else cares or can overrule [Milstein] on the day-to-day policy,” the official told NOTUS.
Though some Palestinian Christians had hoped for solidarity from Huckabee, an evangelical pastor, they’ve been disappointed.
“Many people believe that this administration pretends to be caring about Christians – the outcome of its policies is totally the opposite,” said Wadie Abunassar, the coordinator of a nongovernmental group of Palestinian Christians called the Forum of Holy Land Christians.
Hard-right Israelis challenge both Muslim and Christian claims to Jerusalem. Abunassar cited incidents of spitting and vandalism against Christians and community sites, including churches, for which he said there is little accountability. Huckabee has criticized Israeli Jews for targeting Palestinians in some instances, including this week, but skeptics say he has been inconsistent.
“If we are lucky we will get some condemnation from the Americans. If we are not lucky they [turn] a blind eye,” said Abunassar. “What we are expecting from the United States is to be more demanding from the Israeli authorities on … implementing the law equally.”
The E1 settlement could make Palestinians more vulnerable. Khaled Al-Qawasmi, a former minister in the Palestinian Authority, which partly governs the West Bank, drew a parallel between changes around Jerusalem and increasing Israeli control of a Muslim holy site in his hometown of Hebron.
He said Palestinians used to regularly pray at Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque but now face at least three inspections in just a 20-yard span before they can enter, with the chance of being stopped and turned back at any point.
“They probably are going to do the same in the Al-Aqsa Mosque” in Jerusalem, said Qawasmi, now the deputy mayor of Hebron. “They are making it more and more hard for Palestinians to have a normal life.”
Author
