LOCAL CONSTRUCTION FIRM FOR SECRET U.S. BASE IN ISRAEL ALSO BUILT AN ILLEGAL SETTLEMENT – By Ken Klippenstein, Jason Paladino (The Intercept) / Nov 3, 2023
Y.D. Ashush, which got a piece of the $35 million Pentagon contract, built a new settlement community on stolen Palestinian land.
THE U.S. MILITARY’S recent $35 million contract to do construction at its secret base in Israel went to a joint venture that includes an American firm and an Israeli one. The Israeli company, Y.D. Ashush Infrastructure, has been involved in many large-scale infrastructure and public works projects — including building an illegal settlement in occupied Palestinian territory.
In a section on its website touting its projects, Ashush mentions construction work in the settlement of Leshem. Originally planned to include nearly 700 homes, Leshem was constructed in the 2010s as a satellite of Alei Zahav, a settlement established in 1982.
“Leshem is an Israeli settlement that was established in 2010, officially as a ‘neighborhood’ of an older settlement called Alei Zahav,” Dror Etkes — founder of Kerem Navot, an Israeli organization that monitors Israeli land policy in the West Bank — told The Intercept. Etkes said describing new communities as “neighborhoods” was a “trick” used by settlers to make it look like no new settlement was being constructed, since such moves have often drawn international condemnation.
CONTINUE > https://theintercept.com/2023/11/03/israel-settlement-us-base/
