Peace Talks: The Perfect Alibi For Settlement Expansion In The West Bank And East Jerusalem
The announcement Sunday that Israel’s housing minister has approved construction of 1,200 new settlement units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem should be no surprise. It comes just a few days after the Civil Administration announced 878 new housing units in the West Bank. In fact, Israel’s approval of new settlement construction is the one new concrete development on the ground since Kerry announced the resumption of negotiations on July 19.
Something like 2,000 new units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem – some in final approval stages before building begins and others at the start of the tender process – have been announced in the last few weeks. The construction published today enumerates 400 new units in Gilo, 210 in Har Homa and 183 Pisgat Ze’ev — all settlements beyond the Green Line in East Jerusalem. In the West Bank,it was made up of 117 units in Ariel, 149 in Efrat, 92 in Ma’aleh Adumim and 36 in Beitar Ilit.
While the new units are mostly part of “consensus settlements” – meaning areas that are presumed to remain part of Israel in any two-state solution – it is important to remember that the only reason they have become so is because of U.S. and international complacency in Israeli settlement building over the years. There is no logical or legitimate reason for places like Ariel, deep in the West Bank, and Har Homa, a relatively new but highly controversial settlement that cuts Bethlehem off from Jerusalem, to remain part of Israel in a future agreement.
The tandem news headlines of “peace talks to resume” coupled with “new Israeli settlements announced” are ridiculously insulting. How can anyone take these talks seriously? It is as if Israel was waiting patiently for the U.S. to announce peace talks before it could fling the settlement floodgates wide open; there was actually more restraint in the last year, with a de facto settlement freeze in East Jerusalem.
Despite its formal statements of condemnation, the U.S. clearly has no problem with the new settlement construction, since it is not doing anything to stop it. According to Ma’ariv‘s report Sunday morning, a U.S. official said that Israel notified the administration of this new round of settlement plans, presenting it as a carrot and stick deal in which the carrot is settlement building, and the stick is releasing Palestinian prisoners.
MORE...
http://972mag.com/peace-talks-the-perfect-alibi-for-settlement-expansion/77268/