Interior Min.: West Bank settler population grew by 6% in 2006

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"The settler population in the West Bank grew by nearly 6 percent in 2006, more than quadruple the rate of increase a year earlier, government figures showed on Tuesday.

The Interior Ministry statistics did not indicate how many of the new arrivals were children born in the 126 settlements Israel has built in the West Bank.

According to the Interior Ministry, there were 268,379 Israelis living in the West Bank at the end of 2006, compared with 253,748 in 2005, a 5.8 percent increase.

The settler population grew by 1.4 percent in 2005. The figures did not include Israelis living in Arab East Jerusalem.

Some 2.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank. The World Court has ruled that settlements built on land Israel captured in the 1967 Six Day War are illegal."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/811480.html

[Tom Joad]

1. Another overlooked "accomplishment" for the State. It is illegal, too.

don't want people to miss that fact.

[Scurrilous]

2. U.S. ambassador to Israel: U.S. reduced W. Bank settlements

<snip>

"Despite its support for Israel, the United States opposes expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and has succeeded in reducing it, the U.S. ambassador to Israel told The Associated Press.

In an interview on Tuesday, Ambassador Richard Jones said that while Israel approves construction of some new settlement housing each year, Washington insists that Israel honor a pledge to freeze settlement activity made under the U.S.-backed 'road map' peace plan in 2003.

"I think that we have definitely slowed efforts at settlement-building," Jones said. "It's certainly true that some units are approved every year, a couple of hundred here or there, but I think the U.S.-Israeli understanding has definitely slowed down the process of settlements. We continue to make our views known through public statements and private discussions."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/812015.html

[Tom Joad]

3. Some kind of strange math there. We need to say no to US support for occupation.

While US papers are filled with headlines, echoed here, that Israel planned to "Remove West Bank Settlements". Anyone bothering to read the story would know Israel never, never, planned to remove "the Settlements" but at best a few isolated outposts.

The Crime continues.

40 years is way too long, and we need to rise up and say NO to occupation.
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1281

Just do it.