On Aug. 19 Israel’s Ministry of Construction and Housing published a tender for 1,234 housing units in seven compounds in E1, the roughly 12-square-kilometer corridor between occupied East Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim. It is the first tranche of 3,401 units the Israeli government approved a year ago. Bids close Oct. 19, eight days before Israel’s general election. Building up E1 would sever the northern West Bank from the southern and cut occupied East Jerusalem off from both.
Two multilateral responses followed.
On Aug. 20 the leaders of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Canada—soon joined by Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Belgium, Spain, Austria and Greece, together with the European Commission—issued a joint statement calling the tenders “unacceptable.” Settlements are illegal under international law, they noted, “the position of the international community reaffirmed by the United Nations Security Council.” They “urge the Government of Israel to retract these plans immediately.”
Then the operative sentence, and the only one in the document addressed to anyone’s conduct: “Businesses should not consider bidding for construction tenders. They should be aware of legal and reputational consequences including the risk of involving themselves in serious breaches of international law.”
Fifteen signers, responding to an act of a foreign housing ministry, put the onus for (in)action on private companies. Of themselves they said only, “We will continue to act in its [peace’s] interest.”
On Aug. 21 the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Türkiye and Egypt issued their own statement. They also rejected E1. They went further, to “support all efforts aimed at ensuring accountability, including through appropriate international measures and sanctions against entities and individuals responsible for illegal settlement activities… as well as those supporting, facilitating or implementing policies of settlement expansion and annexation,” and to “call for an end to any support or financing that contributes to the establishment, expansion or entrenchment of illegal settlements.”
“The lack of accountability,” they added, “contributes to the continuation of violations.”
