JERUSALEM — Israel announced plans Tuesday to build 2,500 more settler homes on the West Bank, moving to step up construction just days after the swearing-in of Donald Trump brought to power a U.S. administration seen as friendly to the settlement movement.
“We are building – and we will continue to build,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote in a Facebook post.
While Trump has signaled that he will be far more tolerant of Israeli settlement construction than his predecessors, he also has expressed a desire to broker a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians, and siding closely with Israel on such a contentious matter could hurt U.S. credibility.
Netanyahu repeatedly clashed with former President Obama over settlement construction.
Obama, like the rest of the international community, considered the building of settlements on occupied lands claimed by the Palestinians to be an obstacle to peace. Those tensions boiled over last month when the Obama White House allowed the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution condemning the settlements as illegal.
Trump harshly criticized Obama for going against Israel and promised a new approach, raising hopes inside Israel’s nationalist government for a new era in relations.
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