Israel has approved the construction of 50 new housing units in a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank.
Officials said the homes would house settlers being moved from a nearby
unauthorised outpost and were only the first part of an expansion plan.
The move runs counter to a demand by Israel’s major ally
and backer, the US, that it stop all settlement activity on occupied
Palestinian land.
It came hours before Defence Minister Ehud Barak was due to fly to the US.
Correspondents say Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reluctance to
comply with a freeze on building in settlements puts him on a collision
course with the US.
Israel argues that settlements must be allowed “natural
growth”, although recent official statistics showed many new homes are
purchased by newcomers from Israel or abroad.
The Palestinian Authority says settlements – which are
illegal under international law – are one of the biggest barriers to
peace, and has vowed to stay away from negotiations until building work
is frozen.
Mr Barak will hold talks in the US with President
Barack Obama’s Middle East envoy, George Mitchell. Mr Netanyahu and Mr
Mitchell were due to meet in Paris last Thursday, but their talks were
cancelled.
Unauthorised
Israel intends to remove about 200 people from the Migron outpost –
deemed illegal by Israel as it is built on private Palestinian land –
and re-house them in Adam settlement, north of Jerusalem.
The disclosure comes in an affidavit from the Defence Ministry to the
Israeli Supreme Court in response to a court case brought by the
Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now.
The document speaks of a master plan to build 1,450
more residential units at Adam, but only 50 of these have been given
the go-ahead.
Any additional units would require separate approval from the Defence Ministry, the document said.
A Peace Now spokesman said moving settlers from the small unauthorised
camp on a hilltop to a 3,500-strong settlement established by the
government sent the wrong message.
“(Settlers) who set up illegal outposts and threatened
to use violence if evicted have benefited because the outcome will be
that their original settlement will have grown 30-fold,” said Yariv
Oppenheimer.
Lawyer Michael Sfard, who acts for the Palestinian
landowners, told the BBC: “It is outrageous that this is how the
government deals with outposts: providing outlaws with a new house.”
He also described the government’s announcement as an
“act of panic”, before the final hearing on the fate of Migron is due
to be held next Monday.
The Israeli authorities have repeatedly removed
structures from the Migron site, but settlers have always returned to
rebuild them.
Some 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, occupied by Israel in the 1967 war.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/8124148.stm
Published: 2009/06/29 11:37:57 GMT
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