Israel to build first new settlement in West Bank in 26 years
Middle East News
May 18, 2009, 12:36 GMT
Tel Aviv - Israel is beginning construction of the first completely new Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank in 26 years, Israel Army Radio reported Monday.
Contractors toured the site of the new Maskiyot settlement, in the Jordan Valley, after the regional settler council issued a tender for the construction of 20 new homes on it, the station said.
Expansion work also began Monday on the Jewish settlement of Nokdim, the home of ultra-nationalist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, the station added. No further details were immediately available.
The moves come as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to attend his first meeting with US President Barack Obama later Monday, despite US and European calls for Israel to halt its settlement activity.
The Maskiyot project was first mooted some three years ago, and was intended to house Jewish settler families evacuated from Gaza following Israel's 2005 unilateral pullout from the strip.
But the project was frozen in January 2007 by then defence minister Amir Peretz following massive international pressure.
Current Defence Minister Ehud Barak, of the left-to-centre coalition Labour Party, unfroze the project when he was still a member of the outgoing Israeli government of Ehud Olmert, said the Israeli settlements watchdog Peace Now.
The project's implementation is now starting under the new new government of Netanyahu, which took office following February 10 elections in which the right-wing bloc of parties won a majority of seats in Israel's parliament.
'I think that Bibi Netanyahu not only does not talk about a two-state solution, he is also doing everything in order to prevent this solution from being implemented in the future,' Peace Now head Yariv Oppenheimer told the German Press Agency dpa.
Israel has insisted Maskiyot is not a new settlement, because it has existed since 1982 in the form of a military outposts established with the express purpose of building a civilian settlement on the site later on. The military outpost still exists and contains a pre-military academy, but this is located at the foot of the hilltop, at some 200 metres from the construction site.
Maskiyot is located in the Jordan Valley, at about 20 kilometres from the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
Almost 280,0000 Jewish settlers live in some 121 Jewish settlements across the West Bank among 2.4 million Palestinians.
US Vice President Joe Biden earlier this month called on Israel to end settlement expansion.
'You're not going to like my saying this, but (Israel should) not build more settlements (and) dismantle existing outposts,' Biden told a pro-Israeli lobbying group in Washington.
Obama is expected to issue the same demand during his meeting with Netanyahu later Monday.
Barak's office did not immediately reply to the written query it demanded.
The last formal new Jewish settlement was built in the West Bank in the early 1980s.
I wonder what Obama will say about this. To be honest all he has to do is to threaten to cut off aid if any more settlements are built, it would solve the problem of settlements overnight. I don't think even many pro-Israeli supporters outside the zealot fringe have much support for more settlements.
Actually didn't Obama ask Netanyahu in person recently to stop expanding or building more settlements? What is Netanyahu trying to do? Make a fool out of the President of the country that bankrolls his country?
"This statement, in its utterly clueless hubristic stupidity, cannot be improved upon. I merely quote it in admiration of its perfection." - Garibaldi
"Problem is, while the Germans have had many mea culpas and quite painfully dealt with their history, the South is still hellbent on painting themselves as the real victims. It gives them a special place in the history of assholes" - Covenant
"Over three million died fighting for the emperor, but when the war was over he pretended it was not his responsibility. What kind of man does that?'' - Saburo Sakai
It's business as usual, Netanyahu doing his level best to ensure that there will never be a resolution to the Palestinian issue or a meaningful statehood for Palestinians. Just like he did in the 1990s. And given the status of US Congress as Israel controlled territory, nothing whatsoever will happen with this unless the Obama administration starts really busting heads. I doubt they will do it over people who are seen as terrorists by most Americans.
Warwolf Urban Combat Specialist
Why is it so goddamned hard to get little assholes like you to admit it when you fuck up? Is it pride? What gives you the right to have any pride?
–Darth Wong to vivftp
GOP message? Why don't they just come out of the closet: FASCISTS R' US –Patrick Degan
The GOP has a problem with anyone coming out of the closet. –18-till-I-die
By the way, the administration will be keeping an eye on this thread for IvP violations. Be forewarned, peons.
A Government founded upon justice, and recognizing the equal rights of all men; claiming higher authority for existence, or sanction for its laws, that nature, reason, and the regularly ascertained will of the people; steadily refusing to put its sword and purse in the service of any religious creed or family is a standing offense to most of the Governments of the world, and to some narrow and bigoted people among ourselves.
Netenyahu is playing the US political scene. He knows that Obama is a compromiser, and he also knows that Obama will be reluctant to rock the boat when he's trying to balance so many things at once.
When you see a guy who's already juggling three chainsaws, you know he'll probably ignore any distractions from you.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
I agree with Mike: This is about pushing Obama, who he knows is a compromiser, away from the Two State mindset by tossing him more flaming chainsaws and gambling that he's too occupied and too easy to haggle down. There's good evidence for that, given that Obama's shown he'll make his initial offer already weak(See the stimulus, where he started with conservative compromises, allowing the negotiations to weaken it further).
Manic Progressive: A liberal who violently swings from anger at politicos to despondency over them.
Out Of Context theatre: Ron Paul has repeatedly said he's not a racist. - Destructinator XIII on why Ron Paul isn't racist.
Just look at the thing on Google Earth, it clearly already is an established settlement, just not a big one.
32°19'2.70"N 35°30'8.86"E. Images goes back to 2004 too before the Gaza withdrawal too showing it unchanged. Why the hell anyone would go live on that dry hilltop, Zionist fanatic or not, is beyond me. That’s probably why it stayed so small so long. Its possible these 20 houses don’t even involve pushing out its security perimeter.
If Israel and the various Palestinian factions ever even get remotely close to a working peace plan and its implementation, this hilltop isn’t going to be the problem. In fact one could suspect that the long time plan for this settlement is that it will become something Israel can trade away latter. Give up this worthless hillock settlement, in ordered to say look we are giving up more settlements then we are keeping while they keep all the large ones.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
