Author: Théophile Niyitegeka

{Netanyahu’s government announces fourth batch of construction since Trump’s inauguration.}

Israel has announced the construction of 3,000 settlement homes in the occupied West Bank, the fourth such announcement in the less than two weeks since the inauguration of US President Donald Trump.

“Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have decided to authorise the construction of 3,000 new housing units in Judea-Samaria,” the defence ministry said in a statement on Tuesday, using the term Israel uses for the West Bank, a Palestinian territory it has occupied since 1967.

Since the January 20 inauguration of Trump, Israel has approved the construction of 566 housing units in three settlement areas of occupied East Jerusalem and announced the building of 2,502 more in the West Bank.

On Thursday last week, Israeli officials gave final approval for 153 settler homes in East Jerusalem.

The plans had been frozen under pressure from the previous US administration of President Barack Obama, which had warned that settlements could derail hopes of a negotiated two-state solution.

Trump, however, has pledged strong support for Israel, and Netanyahu’s government has moved quickly to take advantage.

“We are building and we will continue building,” Netanyahu said last week, referring to settlement approvals.

The prime minister has said he sees the Trump presidency as offering “significant opportunities” after facing “huge pressures” from Obama on Iran and settlements.

The announcements have deeply concerned those seeking to salvage a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. The international community views them as a major obstacle to peace as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state.

More than a half million Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, according to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem.

In a telling break with the Obama administration, Trump’s White House has not condemned Israel’s settlement expansion.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Israeli army issued an eviction notice to residents of Amona as it prepared to demolish their homes.

The order posted at the site on Tuesday gave the residents – some 40 families, including more than 200 children – 48 hours to leave their homes, according to media reports.

Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from the Palestinian village of Taibeh which overlooks the Amona, said the settlement outpost “was built illegally on privately owned Palestinian land”.

“There are only about 40 houses there, so this is very small outpost … but it means a lot to the Jewish community. They say that if that settlement is evacuated and demolished, it sets a precedent for other settlements to also be removed.”

And while the announcement Tuesday that an additional 3,000 settler homes would be built in the occupied West Bank “is likely to alleviate some of the concerns of the settlers”, Khan said, the settlement movement in Israel feels it has been given a “green light” from the incoming Trump administration in the US and that “it shouldn’t be getting rid of any settlements”.

Israel’s top court had ruled in 2014 that Amona, built on land belonging to Palestinians from surrounding West Bank towns, must be vacated by February 8.

Although all settlements are considered illegal under international law, there are more than 100 outposts that were built without authorisation and are considered illegal by even the Israeli government.

In practice, Israel has confiscated Palestinian land since its military occupation of the West Bank – including Jerusalem – and the Gaza Strip started as a result of the 1967 Middle East war.

{Personal accounts and phone records to be scrutinised under travel order targeting seven Muslim-majority nations.}

Travellers to the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries singled out for “extreme vetting” will face scrutiny of their social media activity and phone records, the new US Homeland Security secretary has said.

John Kelly on Tuesday sought to explain President Donald Trump’s travel ban, four days after he issued it with no warning, setting off mass protests, legal challenges and confusion.

“There are many countries, seven that we are dealing with right now, that in our view and my view don’t have the kind of law enforcement, records-keeping, that kind of thing, that can convince us that one of their citizens is indeed who that citizen says they are,” Kelly said in a press conference.

For that reason, he said, US authorities will investigate visa applicants’ social media use and telephone contacts, “so that we can see who they are talking to”.

On Friday, Trump ordered a suspension of arrivals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, including refugees.

With the move under widespread criticism, Kelly denied it specifically targets Muslims, which could violate the US Constitution.

“The vast majority of the 1.7 billion Muslims that live on this planet, all other things being equal, have access to the United States,” he said.

“And a relatively small number right now are being held up for a period of time until we can take a look at what their procedures are.”

{{Longer ban possible}}

Trump’s order halted immigration from the seven countries for at least 90 days, but Kelly suggested that for some the ban could go on longer if stronger vetting procedures are not in place once the review period has elapsed.

“Some of those countries that are on the list may not be taken off the list anytime soon. There are countries that are in various states of collapse, for example,” Kelly said, without offering specifics.

The sudden order caught many US immigration gateways and foreign airlines by surprise, resulting in many people with legal US residency being blocked from boarding aircraft for the US, or being detained upon arrival.

US Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said travellers with dual nationality could enter the US as long as the passport they present is acceptable.

“Travelers will be assessed at our borders based on the passport that they present, not any dual national status,” he said.

By Monday, 721 people had been denied boarding while more than 1,000 people were granted waivers from the Trump order to allow them to enter the country, McAleenan said.

Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett, reporting from Washington, DC, said: “The White House maintains these are extreme vetting procedures, not a Muslim ‘ban’, not a travel ‘ban’.”

However, Trump on Monday tweeted: “If the ban were announced with a one week notice, the “bad” would rush into our country during that week. A lot of bad “dudes” out there!”

{Syrian Khaled Akil, whose work is being exhibited in California, joins artists protesting discriminatory travel ban.}

A Syrian artist whose work about the war in his country has captured the world’s imagination has vowed not to apply for a United States visa until President Donald Trump is out of power.

Khaled Akil’s latest project is being exhibited from Tuesday at California’s Stanford University.

Under Trump’s recent executive order, which suspends travel for Syrian refugees indefinitely, there is no way he would be able to attend his opening.

“I understand they want to interview people and they have the right to know who is coming, but to give a racist order like this to prevent us is agonising,” Akil told Al Jazeera.

Akil moved to Istanbul, Turkey, five years ago. Since 2012, he has applied twice to visit the US to attend exhibitions and was rejected on both occasions.

He fears that in the US, because of the travel ban, there was now “justification for people to hate Syrians”.

“With Trump, I will never apply for the visa, whether or not a ban is in place,” he said. “The politics worries me because it creates the tension that I saw in my own country which led to more violence. That’s why I can’t trust the system any more, I won’t feel safe there.”

Besides banning Syrian refugees, Trump’s order also halts the US refugee programme for 120 days, and bars all immigration for citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for at least 90 days.

Akil’s exhibition in California, “Requiem for Syria”, captures the hope and resilience of a population at war.

“It makes my heart sink that he can’t be here,” Anita Husen, Stanford’s associate dean of students, told Al Jazeera.

“It’s really sad that such a wonderful, talented artist who has generously offered Stanford to host his original prints, free of charge, will not be here to celebrate his opening,” she added.

“Painting broad strokes to deny people right to entry … is not making America any safer,” Husen said. “It’s hurting our intellectual prowess.”

Akil’s work has previously been exhibited at galleries in London, Beirut, San Francisco, Vermont and Istanbul.

One of his projects last year was titled “Pokemon Go In Syria – Part 1” and featured the animated figures in war-torn neighbourhoods.

“I will wait for at least four years [to apply for a US visa],” said Akil, adding that each application costs $160.

“[Trump’s] a racist man and I can’t trust him. I trust the American people – they are also victims of this propaganda.”

Seen by Al Jazeera, Akil’s 2016 rejection letter from the US consulate in Istanbul says that he was found “ineligible for a nonimmigrant visa”.

“You have not demonstrated that you have ties that will compel you to your home country after your travel to the United States,” the letter reads.

Trump’s travel order has exacerbated Syrians’ difficulties in travelling to the US.

The Syrian war began in March 2011. From 2012 to 2015, some 60,000 Syrians left their country, applied for visas and were rejected – four times the number of refusals than during the prior three-year period.

Staffan de Mistura, the UN special envoy for Syria, has estimated that 400,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict, which has also displaced millions.

“We are the first victims of this war, we are the victims of terrorism,” said Akil, who explained that while he would not apply for another visa any time soon, he hopes to continue exhibiting his work in the US.

“It’s very important for Americans to see Syria now. They’re just getting what the media is providing them. If we show them our art, music and writing, we can introduce then to our culture and show them not all Syrians are terrorists.”

Growing protests among artists

Akil is among a growing number of artists who are protesting the discriminatory travel measures.

Oscar-nominated Iranian director Asghar Farhadi said he would not attend the Academy Awards ceremony in late February, whether or not he would be granted an exception to enter the US.

Taraneh Alidoosti, who stars in Farhadi’s celebrated film, “The Salesman”, is also boycotting the event.

Malorie Blackman, a British children’s author, said she would not travel to the US while the travel ban was in place in solidarity with those affected.

Comma Press, a UK-based publisher, said it would only translate authors from the seven banned nations in 2018.

Marcia Lynx Qualey, a Cairo-based literary critic, said: “The violence of such an executive act cannot be countered solely with art, or translation.”

She called for the empowerment of authors from the affected countries through forging connections between those writers and literary communities, “thus resisting the ban”.

{US says missile test carried out in Semnan on Sunday, but Tehran insists its programme is not covered by nuclear deal.}

Iran’s missile tests do not involve rockets with nuclear warheads and are not part of a historic deal signed two years ago by world powers, according to the country’s foreign minister.

Javad Zarif affirmed his position on Tuesday, a day after White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the United States was “aware that Iran fired a missile” and was “looking into the exact nature of it”.

Addressing reporters alongside his visiting French counterpart, Jean-Marc Ayrault, Zarif said: “The missile issue is not part of the nuclear deal.”

Reiterating Iran’s traditional stance, Zarif said that his country’s missiles are “not designed for the capability of carrying a nuclear warhead”.

Iran is only using ballistic missiles to defend itself, he added.

A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a ballistic missile test was carried out on Sunday from a site near Semnan, east of Tehran, according to the Reuters news agency.

The medium-range ballistic missile reportedly exploded after 1,010km, the official said, adding that the last time this type of test was test launched was in July 2016.

{{Nuclear deal}}

The reported test drew wide condemnation as many feared it could be in violation of a UN resolution adopted in 2015 prohibiting ballistic missile tests designed to deliver a nuclear warhead.

The resolution was part of the nuclear deal between Iran and the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany.

US Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he would work with politicians and President Donald Trump’s administration to hold Iran accountable.

Meanwhile, the European Union called on Tehran to “refrain from activities which deepen mistrust”. EU foreign policy spokeswoman Nabila Massrali said that such a test was “inconsistent” with the UN resolution.

Israel also condemned the test.

During the US election campaign, Trump branded the nuclear agreement “the worst deal ever negotiated”, telling voters that he would either rip it up or seek a better deal.

Speaking from Tehran, France’s Ayrault voiced “concern” over the reported test.

“France has expressed its concern at Iran’s continuation of its ballistic missile tests on several occasions,” Ayrault said.

He said the continued tests are “contrary to the spirit” of the Security Council resolution.

But, he added: “We harbour real concerns about the US administration’s attitude towards this agreement.”

In a similar vein, Zarif said that he hoped Iran’s defence programme “is not used by the new US administration … as a pretext to create new tensions”.

After an urgent UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday, called by Washington, the US envoy to the UN said the test was “absolutely unacceptable”.

“We have confirmed that Iran did have a medium-size missile launch testing,” said Nikki Haley.

“That is more than enough to be able to deliver a nuclear weapon,” she sais, adding that the US “is not naive”.

Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabbari, reporting from Iran’s capital, Tehran, said Iranian officials insist that the country has complied with the restrictions imposed in the deal.

Meanwhile, Russia said the test by Iran does not contravene the UN resolution.

“Such actions, if they took place, do not breach the resolution,” Sergei Ryabkov, the Russian deputy foreign minister, told Interfax news agency, saying demands for UN talks were aimed at “heating up the situation”.