Israel Settlers Set to Build if Netanyahu Allows as Freeze Ends
Israel's Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Mark Wilson/Pool via Bloomberg
Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel.
Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel. Photographer: Mark Wilson/Pool via Bloomberg
On the terraced southern slope of Israel’s Neriah settlement in the West Bank, about five miles from the Palestinian Authority’s headquarters, tractors and work crews are poised to start building a new neighborhood.
Excavating the lots and pouring cement foundations for 70 homes will begin promptly on Sept. 26, when a 10-month settlement construction moratorium expires, unless the Defense Ministry withholds needed permission, said Neriah Council Chairman Doron Ben-Yehuda.
The planned action will force Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to choose between keeping a commitment to his coalition partners to end the freeze -- which could bring peace negotiations with Palestinians to a halt -- or heeding President Barack Obama’s call to extend the moratorium.
“When the government says we can build, we will start building again and we hope to start on Sunday,” Ben-Yehuda said, standing at the building site.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the talks he started with Netanyahu at the beginning of the month can’t continue if construction resumes. The Israeli leader repeatedly has said he doesn’t plan on extending the freeze.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who joined Netanyahu and Abbas for talks last week in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, and Jerusalem, urged the two to reach a compromise on settlements that would allow negotiations to continue. Obama’s envoy, George Mitchell, said Israeli and Palestinian officials would meet this week to try to find a solution and keep the talks going.
The end of the moratorium may mean the start of construction on at least 2,066 housing units that have the necessary permits, according to a survey by Peace Now, a Tel Aviv-based group that opposes settlement construction.
Settler Council
That is exactly what the Yesha Council, which represents some 300,000 Israelis living in West Bank settlements, wants to encourage.
“If Netanyahu caves in on this, it will shatter his government’s credibility and his word will mean nothing,” said Naftali Bennett, the director-general of Yesha and a former top aide to Netanyahu when he was the parliamentary opposition leader. “Politically, I don’t think he can risk that.”
Netanyahu’s government collapsed during his first term as prime minister in 1998 after he made concessions in negotiations with the Palestinians and his coalition allies who supported settlements left the administration.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who leads the second- biggest party in Netanyahu’s current ruling coalition, Yisrael Beitenu, says he has the political clout to stop any extension of the moratorium.
Peace Talks
Netanyahu said he declared the freeze to restart peace talks, which were frozen for 20 months after Israel waged a military offensive in the Gaza Strip it said was aimed at stopping militants from firing rockets at southern towns and cities. He said housing construction would be stopped in West Bank settlements, excluding some 3,000 homes that already received government approval, as well as some public buildings.
Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev said the prime minister hasn’t stated the precise time when the moratorium expires.
Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian Authority spokesman, declined to say whether Abbas will declare an end to the peace talks as soon as construction begins or what level of building activity would cause him to stop negotiations.
Ben-Yehuda said he expects construction to start at sundown, because the moratorium was issued according to the Hebrew calendar in which the day ends when the sun sets. He said he would check with the government to make sure construction would be legal, because contractors are subject to fines and confiscation of equipment if they violate military orders against building.
Negotiating Strategy
Defense Ministry permission is required for building in the West Bank and Defense Minister Ehud Barak can block construction by withholding approval. A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because Israel’s negotiating strategy is secret, said Netanyahu is considering such a de facto freeze.
Neriah, founded in 1991, is an offshoot of the larger Talmon settlement and the two have a population of about 2,500, said Tzvika Dror, Talmon’s operations chief.
“This freeze has been strangling us,” Ben-Yehuda, 47, said. “If we can’t build, we can’t grow, and if we don’t grow we’ll just wither away.”
Members of the prime minister’s Likud party are planning to mark the end of the moratorium by laying the cornerstone for a new neighborhood in the settlement of Revava in the northern West Bank.
Settler Outposts
Israel has built about 120 settlements in the West Bank since the late 1960s. Another 100 smaller settlements, which Israel calls outposts, were built during the past decade. The United Nations says settlements are illegal and the International Committee of the Red Cross says they breach the Fourth Geneva Convention governing actions on occupied territory. Obama has said they aren’t legitimate.
Israel says settlements don’t fall under the convention because the territory wasn’t recognized as belonging to anyone before the 1967 war, in which Israel prevailed, and therefore isn’t occupied.
Abbas and Netanyahu have agreed to meet every two weeks for a year to reach a framework peace agreement.
“We are looking for ways to insure that the talks are not interrupted but we cannot negotiate while Israel is building on our territory,” said Khatib.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Ferziger in Neriah via Tel Aviv at jferziger@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg at phirschberg@bloomberg.net.
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