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More Settler Homes Planned

by Arab News (repost)
GAZA, 26 February 2005 — Israel plans to build over6 , 000more settler homes in West Bank this year in a move that is likely to affect the Middle East peace process.
A report in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper said yesterday that6 ,391 homes for settlers were slated to be built this year, a sharp increase over2004 . The report drew a call from the Palestinians for US pressure on Israel to drop any such plan in the interests of peace.

Statistics on the website of the Israel Lands Authority (ILA), whose2005 construction plan was cited by Yediot, showed the government agency marketed1 , 783new housing units in the West Bank in 2004 and1 , 225in 2003.

An ILA spokesman was unavailable for comment.

Responding to the report, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz’s office said in a terse statement he had approved building permits for “a limited number of housing units” in settlement blocs.

The statement gave no figures.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said the construction would violate a US-backed road map that calls on Israel to cease all “settlement activity” on territory it captured in the 1967 Middle East War.

“We urge personal and direct intervention by President Bush to make sure such a plan will not be implemented,” Erekat said.

The election of Mahmoud Abbas last month as Palestinian president and a cease-fire he and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared at a Feb. 8 summit in Egypt have raised hopes of reviving the road map after four years of bloodshed.

Palestinian leaders have also warmed to an Israeli evacuation of all 21 Jewish settlements from Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank due to start on July20 . But they note Sharon pledged to keep big West Bank settlement blocs forever.

“As for the major clusters, don’t expect us to stop construction there. In any future agreement, Israel will retain them,” a government official said, citing a need to accommodate the “natural growth” of their populations.

About225 , 000Israelis live in 120 settlements in the West Bank. The international community views settlements as illegal.

Under the ILA plan, a third of the new Israeli homes in existing Jewish enclaves in the West Bank this year would be built just outside Jerusalem in Maaleh Adumim, Israel’s largest settlement and home to 30,000, Yediot Ahronot said.

The newspaper, Israel’s biggest, also said the government intended to approve retroactively about200 settlement outposts erected without its authorization in the West Bank, but Mofaz’s office denied this.

“The defense minister has made it clear on numerous occasions that all the unauthorized outposts will be removed, and that will be the case,” his office said.

In a new development in the Gaza pullout plan, security officials said Mofaz intended to speed up the pace of evacuation this summer in a bid to avoid lengthy confrontations with settlers who refuse to leave.

Mofaz now aims to complete the withdrawal in four weeks instead of seven, the officials said.

— Additional input from agencies

http://arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=59568&d=26&m=2&y=2005
§Israel Defies Bush, To Expand Illegal Colonies
by palestine-pmc.com
The Israeli Yedioth Ahronoth daily reported Friday that Israel plans to build 6,391 homes for the illegal settlers in the Jewish colonies in occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank in 2005, a sharp increase over 2004, in defiance of US President George W. Bush’s call in Brussels Monday on the Jewish state to “freeze all settlement activity.”

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat on Friday urged US President Bush to press Israel “to make sure such a plan is not implemented and that his call for a freeze in all settlement activity is implemented.”

Bush reaffirmed Monday US commitment to the creation of a viable Palestinian state with contiguous territory in the West Bank.

Erekat said the construction would violate a US-backed and UN-adopted “roadmap” for Palestinian – Israeli peace that calls on Israel to cease all “settlement activity” on Palestinian territory it occupied in the 1967.

Statistics on the Web site of the Israel Lands Authority (ILA), whose 2005 construction plan was cited by Yedioth Ahronoth, showed the Israeli government agency marketed 1,783 new housing units in the West Bank in 2004 and 1,225 in 2003.

Yedioth Ahronoth said a third of the new Israeli homes planned this year in the West Bank would be built just outside Jerusalem in the colony of Maaleh Adumim, Israel's largest settlement in the West Bank, which has a population of more than 30, 000.

Most of the rest will be built in several colonies south of Jerusalem.

Confirming the report, Israeli “Defense” Minister Shaul Mofaz's office said in a statement he had approved building permits for “a limited number of housing units” in settlement blocs, but the statement gave no figures.

Another Israeli government official also confirmed the report to Reuters.

“As for the major clusters, don't expect us to stop construction there. In any future agreement, Israel will retain them,” the official told Reuters, citing a need to accommodate the so-called “natural growth” of the illegal settlers.

However the ILA spokesman Adam Avidan said that this was “a draft of a plan that was submitted in 2003,” adding: “It was never approved.”

Avidan said he did not know how many new homes would be built this year in existing Jewish colonies in the West Bank.

The newspaper, Israel's biggest, also said the Israeli government intended to approve retroactively about 200 settlement outposts erected without its authorization in the West Bank, but Mofaz's office denied this.

“The defense minister has made it clear on numerous occasions that all the unauthorized outposts will be removed, and that will be the case,” his office said.

More than 425,000 Israeli Jewish settlers live in more than 155 colonies in occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank. The international community views these colonies as illegal.

Israel's government last Sunday approved a plan to “disengage” its occupation forces and illegal Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and endorsed a new route of its Wall of Annexation and Expansion in the West Bank.

The changed route of the Wall of Annexation and Expansion, which the Jewish state is building on occupied Palestinian land, will incorporate seven percent (7%) of the West Bank area and the Jewish colonies of Maale Adumin and Gush Etzion, east and south of Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pledged after a meeting with President Moshe Katsav Monday there will be no negotiations on Jerusalem, which “will remain united as the eternal capital of the Jewish people. It will not be divided.”

This statement contradicts his statement to Al-Ahram Saturday that the Wall Israel is building on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank will not mark the definitive border of an eventual Palestinian state.

Anti-Wall Protesters Tear Gazed

On Friday the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) used tear gas to disperse some 700 people, mostly Palestinian villagers from Rafat northwest of Jerusalem and Deir Balut in the northern West Bank and a few foreign and Israeli peace activists, who were protesting the leveling of land by Israeli bulldozers to prepare the ground for the Wall's imminent erection.

The villagers had organized a mass prayer by the site and clashes later broke out with IOF troops.

A dozen protesters suffered breathing difficulties after inhaling tear gas and were treated on the spot.

Palestinians dub the Wall as an “Apartheid Wall.”

Jewish Rabbi for Dismantling Israeli Colonies

Separately spokesman of Natouri Karata, which is an anti Zionism institution, Israel David Wice, demanded Thursday the dismantling of Israeli colonies, which are located on land that belongs to the Palestinian people.

“Zionism is against Judaism,” the Rabbi said in a statement to reporters underlining that Natouri Karata Institution has been opposing Zionism as well as condemning its criminal sins committed against the Palestinian people.

Wise pointed out that the Palestinians are victims of the immoral Zionism, which denied them their existence and rights on their own lands.

“We always demonstrate in the United States and Europe against Zionism but the media doesn't pay us any attention,” the Rabbi said pointing out that Karata institution has been refusing to live under the Zionist system represented by Israel.

http://www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=1&id=807
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