Israeli cabinet approves resolution to speed up West Bank settlement building

The Israel cabinet has approved a resolution to speed up the process of constructing buildings in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. 

Axios reported on Sunday that the resolution would limit the amount of control the prime minister and the defense minister have to approve building plans in the occupied settlements. The resolution would curb the ability of the U.S. and other countries to press the government to suspend such plans. 

Building plans will only need to be approved twice at the political level, as building plans in the past decades had to receive a “green light” at the political level four to five times, according to Axios. 

In a statement, the Palestinian minister for civilian affairs Hussein al-Sheikh said that the Palestinian Authority will boycott their Monday meeting of the Joint Israeli-Palestinian Economic Committee due to the decision. 

“The Palestinian leadership will study a number of other measures and decisions for implementation related to the relationship with Israel,” al-Sheikh said.

The move comes as U.S. officials have warned against Israel’s expansion in the West Bank settlement, saying that the expansion undermines its plans to achieve a two-state solution with the Palestinians. Israel recently informed the U.S. of their plans to build thousands more housing units in the West Bank settlement. 

“We have long made clear our concerns about additional settlements in the West Bank, that we don’t want to see actions taken that are going to make a two-state solution that much more difficult to achieve,” White House National Security Spokesperson John Kirby said during the White House press briefing.

“We don’t want to see steps taken that only increase the tensions and we’ve been very clear about that. Nothing’s changed about our policy,” Kirby added.