A picture taken on October 14, 2020, shows the Israeli Shimaa settlement south of the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, with the Palestinian village of Samua in the background.
Settlement expansion will not slow the pace of Israel's normalization with the Arab world , undermining the future of a Palestinian state. On Oct. 14-15, Israel's Defense Ministry approved the construction of almost 5,000 new homes in the West Bank, including some already built illegally but now deemed legal. There was condemnation from European powers and Jordan, but no immediate diplomatic pushback from Israel's new Gulf Arab allies, Abu Dhabi and Manama. In the absence of any real consequence to proceeding, Israel will maintain its long-term strategy of expanding settlements despite international protest to secure parts of the West Bank and undermine a future Palestinian state. The political, economic and security drivers for settlement expansion have not changed substantially enough to influence the settlement policy of the current unity government.
