Does Trump signal golden age for Israeli settlements?

"We did say 'thank God,' but no one here popped open the champagne on Monday night," settlement strategist Yehoshua Mor Yosef told Al-Monitor in response to the Knesset's passing the Regularization Law on Feb. 6.

The contentious law, advanced by HaBayit HaYehudi, is intended to legalize Jewish homes built on privately owned Palestinian land in the West Bank. Mor Yosef says that as far as the settlers are concerned, this is only the beginning. In the next stage, the fight will move to the Supreme Court. "At that point, HaBayit HaYehudi and its leader Naftali Bennett will have to fight for the law, based on the fairly safe assumption that the Supreme Court will overturn it," he said. "Ultimately, what matters to us is the outcome. We have no intention of allowing Bennett to hide behind the Supreme Court."

Mor Yosef runs the political and media campaign to legalize nine houses in the settlement of Ofra that were built on privately owned Palestinian land and are slated for demolition, according to a Supreme Court ruling. His campaign's aggressive, intimidating messages target the leaders of HaBayit HaYehudi, calling on them and their party to deliver. After all, the settlers believe that the circumstances are more favorable now than they have been in a very long time. An obviously right-wing government rules Israel, while the Donald Trump administration in the United States appears to support the settler enterprise.

"Here in Ofra, we are no longer willing to be considered criminals. We are fed up with being suspects, and we will not give up on the legalization of our homes. We won’t be persuaded otherwise. This time we will not accept the excuse that the Supreme Court issued a ruling. Our politicians cannot hide behind the Supreme Court anymore," said Mor Yosef as he outlined his campaign strategy and its implicit threat.