The project was first signed off in 1999, but stopped two years later after Palestinian labourers refused to go on.

Israel's housing minister said the construction at Givat Zeev would address "the demographic needs of Jerusalem".

But the decision provoked an angry reaction from Palestinian leaders.

As violence spirals and calls for peace talks grow, extremists say they will build a new West Bank settlement for each of the eight students killed 

Israel's far-right settler movement has set itself on a renewed collision course with the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, declaring that last week's massacre in a Jewish religious school had targeted them directly and vowing to build a new illegal outpost in the West Bank for every one of the killed students.

Amid a sense of spiralling crisis in Israeli and the Occupied Territories - which has stemmed from the impression that both Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are rudderless amid the climbing violence - Abbas performed yet another policy U-turn, calling for new talks with Israel after having earlier appeared to back away from peace talks.

The latest moves follow the killing on Thursday by a Palestinian gunmen of eight Jewish seminary students, the bloodiest attack in Israel in two years. Hamas, which had vowed to avenge the more than 125 Palestinians killed in a recent Gaza offensive by Israel, at first claimed responsibility, then backtracked.

As has been widely reported, a gunman in Jerusalem opened fire at the Mercaz Harav yeshiva yesterday, killing 8 students (most of them children) and wounding at least 9. At a time like this, there are two different sets responsibilities to the victims: one is to mourn the brutal deaths of these boys and young men.  At the same time, we need to work to prevent this sort of thing from happening again, which requires us to understand the context in which this act of terrorism occurred.  Failing to understand this atrocity within the overall context of the occupation reinforces the right-wing line that Palestinian violence is motivated simply by anti-Semitism, blood hatred, or Biblical feuds.

Although the gunman’s specific motives are unclear, this killing comes at a moment that the New York Times somewhat delicately describes as a time of “tension”.  Israel’s latest attack on Gaza has left over 130 Palestinians dead, half of them civilians.  Just yesterday, a 20 day-old infant was buried after being shot in the head by Israeli soldiers.  Another contextualizing factor is the nature of the yeshiva where the attack took place, a key institution in the militant settlers’ movement, which has been stealing land from Palestinians in the occupied territories for decades, believing God intended the land for Jews.

 
These horrific killings are utterly unjustifiable, and Hamas’ praise for the operation is both contemptible and chilling.  It is important not to let this sort illegitimate act of terrorist violence obscure the legitimate and urgent grievances of the Palestinian people under occupation and in exile.   It is vital to keep this in mind, because whatever the specific motivations of the gunman might have been, terrorist violence like this is almost always a symptom of Israel’s expansionist policies and is unlikely to end until the occupation is over.