Israeli Spending on Illegal Settlements Hits Two-Decade High of $1.1 Billion

Via Allison Deger at Mondoweiss: “Haaretz reported settlement spending has skyrocketed by 38% since 2010,reaching a two-decade high of $1.1 billion. Historically this level of funding was surpassed only once in 1993 during the post-Oslo boom in Israeli control over the West Bank.”

Earlier this month, I wrote of an Associated Press report detailing the dramatic rise of the settler population under the administration of Benjamin Netanyahu (an increase of 18% during his reign):

The number of Jewish settlers that the Israeli government has incentivized to live on Palestinian land has tripled since 1993 to more than 342,000 at the end of 2011, according to the Associated Press. That number does not include some 200,000 Jews living in East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed from the Palestinians in 1967.

In the past six months alone, according to the UN, there have been 3,437 Palestinians displaced and affected by Israeli demolitions in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

All of this settlement building is illegal under international law, which prohibits the forced transfer of civilian populations and forbids military occupiers from transferring any of its population to settle into the occupied area.