[It is absolutely no accident that Israel announces new settlement expansion just as Vice President Biden visits Israel.  This kind of behavior has been done by Israel again and again: if the US administration shows any signs of seriously moving the “peace process” forward which necessarily means that Israel must change its behavior, Israel sticks the US President’s nose in his utter lack of power and inability to change Israel’s behavior.  This is the signal Israel gives this week, embarrassing (if, indeed, he can be embarrassed) Vice President Biden and the entire Obama administration by expanding these pernicious settlements when Biden travels to Israel.]

Approval to build 112 new flats in Beitar Illit comes despite Israeli government’s partial curbs on settlement construction

Binyamin Netanyahu gives a televised press conference in Jerusalem

Binyamin Netanyahu had imposed a series of curbs on further settlement construction. Photograph: Sebastian Scheiner/AP

The Israeli defence ministry today authorised further construction in a Jewish settlement on the occupied West Bank.

The decision came prior to the arrival in Israel of the US vice-president, Joe Biden, who is expected to announce a new round of indirect peace talks.

Approval for 112 new flats in Beitar Illit, an ultra-Orthodox settlement near Bethlehem, was given despite a 10-month partial curb on settlement construction announced by the Israeli government under heavy US pressure in November.

The decision to approve the building work appeared to be an attempt to appease members of Israel’s rightwing coalition government. It was greeted with dismay by Palestinian officials.

George Mitchell, the US special envoy, has spent months attempting
to get Israelis and Palestinians to restart negotiations, and was
hoping a new round of indirect “proximity” talks would begin today.

“If
the Israeli government wants to sabotage Mitchell’s efforts by taking
such steps, let’s talk to Mitchell about maybe not doing this if the
price is so high,” Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said.

For
many months, Palestinian officials resisted any return to negotiations
with Israel, saying all settlement construction should first be halted
in line with the obligations of the US “road map” of 2003.

All settlements on occupied territory are illegal under international law.

Finally,
under international pressure, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas,
was persuaded to enter a four-month period of shuttle diplomacy, led by
Mitchell and due to start in the coming days.

Although the US
administration last year demanded Israel halt all settlement building,
it eventually welcomed the partial curbs imposed by the Israeli prime
minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.

The temporary curbs did not apply
to east Jerusalem, public buildings or around 3,000 flats whose
construction was already under way.

The Israeli defence ministry
said the Beitar Illit flats had been approved under the previous
Israeli government and that construction needed to happen now, for
unspecified security reasons.

However, Hagit Ofran, of the
Israeli group Peace Now, which monitors and opposes settlements, said
the construction directly contradicted Netanyahu’s settlement curbs,
which prevented building of any flats – even if already approved – on
which work had not yet started.

“It is a very unfortunate welcome that the government of Israel is giving to the vice-president,” she said.

“It
is as if they want to make it look like they want peace but on the
other hand to torpedo the chance for these talks to succeed.”

Last
week, another plan for 600 new flats in the east Jerusalem settlement
of Pisgat Zeev passed through an initial stage of the approval process.