As the United States resupplies the Israeli military, it is facing calls from key foreign allies to take meaningful action against Israel’s latest settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank. Israel has announced plans to build 3,000 new settlement homes and expand the “E1” settlement zone that bisects the West Bank in response to last month’s historic Palestinian statehood vote at the United Nations. While governments across the world have denounced the move as a fatal threat to the two-state solution, the Obama administration has offered a tepid response, calling the massive settlement expansion “counterproductive.” At a meeting in Belgium, British Foreign Secretary William Hague and Swedish counterpart Carl Bildt urged the United States to join the world in opposing the settlements and seeking a negotiated peace.

William Hague: “I expect the whole of the EU, like the United Kingdom, will be strongly opposed to that and deplore that decision. And certainly, in Britain we call on the United States to lead a major effort to revive the peace process in the coming months, and I think we need to discuss today how European nations can best support that.”

Carl Bildt: “I think what the Israelis did there, on the E1, has really shifted things inside the European Union to an extent that I don’t think they have fully appreciated because the level of concerns that are there.”