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Israel’s cabinet has been debating a government plan to press ahead with 2,000 new settler homes in the occupied West Bank.
The issue is dividing the coalition government of Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, with a final decision on whether or not to defy a US demand to halt construction expected within days.
Jacky Rowland, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Jerusalem, reported on Sunday: “This is an issue where Netanyahu is really coming under pressure from strong forces both inside and outside the country.”
The US, a major Israeli ally keen to re-start the Middle East peace process, wants Tel Aviv to stop the settlement activity as a pre-condition to peace talks with the Palestinians.
However, speaking at the beginning of the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on Sunday, Uzi Landau, the Israeli minister of national infrastructure, from the Yisrael Beiteinu party said he could not see “any reason to stop construction neither in Tel-Aviv, nor in Jerusalem, nor in Judea and Samaria”.
‘Reducing construction’
Netanyahu did not address the settlement issue in his remarks broadcast from the Israeli cabinet meeting, preferring to use language that might appeal to both the left and right wings of his government.
“The type of language we are hearing at the moment is ‘reducing the scale’ of construction in the settlements, which does seem to be a kind of halfway house which may end up not pleasing anyone,” Rowland reported.
“Netanyahu is really facing irreconcilable demands on the one hand for a setlement freeze, a demand pushed by the US and the EU, but on the other hand equally strong opposition to any freeze from within the cabinet.”
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| Building of more settler homes is expected to begin in the days ahead [AFP] |
The Israeli and US positions are also unlikely to satisfy Palestinian demands.Speaking while on a visit to Cairo, the Egyptian capital, Khaled Meshaal, the political chief of the Hamas faction, said: “In terms of normalisation and the freezing of settlements, we warn against any hasty decision on the part of the Arabs in terms of what Obama and Israel are proposing.
“We will take Obama’s announcement at the UN General Assembly at the end of this month seriously, but we will not accept the Palestinian cause being reduced to this one issue of a settlement freeze in return for Arab normalisation with Israel.
“The real issue is that of an Israeli occupation of Palestinian land which must end.
“The Palestinians must have the right to self-determination.”
Decision imminent
But Yisrael Katz, the transport minister, told Israel Radio: “The prime minister will decide in the coming days on the building of hundreds of additional housing units in order to solve existing problems in various settlements.”
Israeli officials announced the new construction on Friday but they also hinted they might halt some building in the occupied West Bank to try to appease the Arab world.
Avishay Braverman, minister of minorities from the Labor party, said: “Most of the settlers will eventually stay in land that will be absorbed in Israel, but many others will have to be dismantled. I think there will be a freezing.”
About 300,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and another 200,000 in Arab East Jerusalem, territory captured in a 1967 war.
Palestinians numbering about 2.5 million live in the West Bank and aspire to establish a state there and in the Gaza Strip.
Source: Aljazeera and agencies
Jews have owned that land for thousands of years before the arab interlopers moved in. Totally absurd for Obama or anyone to demand that Israel stop building on their own land. Try reading a history book before bowing to Arab propoganda