Israel's timing was predicable. With the world’s gaze focused on the horrors in Syria and the Obama administration increasingly diverted by November’s presidential election, it chose this week to declare “legal” three fortified West Bank settlements which had been originally been erected by fanatical Zionists in contravention of their country’s own laws.

The settlements on land seized from Palestinians are called by their occupiers, Bruchin, Rechenim and Sansana. By conniving in their “legalization”, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is effectively approving the first new land grabs in more than 20 years. Until now, successive Israeli governments have argued that settlement expansion was nothing more than “in-filling”. Thus Jerusalem has become almost surrounded by a threatening ring of construction, which were passed off as mere extensions.

From the point of view of the people of the Occupied Territories, this is yet one more cause for despair. These settlements, constructed and supported openly by the Israeli authorities, in complete contravention of international law, are what they call “facts on the ground”. With every new “fact”, Israel reinforces the argument that it will one day present, that it is “unreasonable” or even “inhuman” that people who have made their lives in these settlements for so many years, should be expected to abandon them.

The fact that every single illegal settlement is state-sponsored theft and that the way in which swaggering, gun-totting settlers protect their crimes is little more than state-sponsored terrorism, will not of course concern Israeli leaders at all. At heart they are still wedded to the core Zionist ideal of Eretz — Greater — Israel, whose borders would extend much further than the land which they presently occupy. The presence of Palestinians in the territory they covet is an inconvenience which they undoubtedly expect to tackle in time.

This slow encroachment on Palestinian lands, with the consequent expulsion and exclusion of the rightful owners, is a form of slow-motion ethnic cleansing.

So what is the international community doing about this latest piece of official Israeli larceny? UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said that he is “deeply troubled”. It is clear that the Obama administration, when it found out about the Netanyahu plan for the three settlements, went to some lengths to persuade the Israelis to abandon it — but not far enough to actually prevent it.

The fact that Netanyahu felt that he could ignore pressure from Washington says a lot about the state of US politics. Every four years, incumbent presidents discover that they cannot even pretend to get tough with their recalcitrant and ungrateful Israeli ally. The Zionist vote and perhaps even more importantly, the highly effective Zionist lobby on the Hill, knows that it can fly top cover over whatever the government back in Israel chooses to do.

The bitter truth is that until US politics is prepared to confront and face down the disproportionate power of their country’s Zionist pressure group, their policy in the Middle East will always be held hostage to the whims of the government in Tel Aviv.

Perhaps more insidiously, whatever the instincts of European states and their disgust at the gross injustices being visited upon the Palestinians, they have yet to find the courage to act alone in seeking to sanction Israel. The European Zionist lobby is not ineffective. German horror at the depravities of the Nazis has forged an oddly uncritical bond with Israel. Yet there is a clear perception in many EU capitals that Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands must be stopped and reversed. However, without Washington’s support, EU sanctions would not only be meaningless but they could set the Europeans at loggerheads with the Americans.

So what this means is simply that the international hand-wringing will go on. The protests at Israeli behavior will continue. The demands that Netanyahu respect international law will be renewed. And nothing, absolutely nothing else will happen. The Zionists will be left in peace to continue to transform the “facts on the ground” and the fundamental rights and dignity of the Palestinian people will carry on being tramped underfoot. Washington complains regularly at the extremism of groupings like Hamas.

Surely their view should rather be one of amazement that a proud people who have having their country stolen from them, bit by bit, are so moderate?