Reports: Israel To Defy US With New Settlements

[Purveyor]

Source: The Hill

Israel plans to announce construction plans for more Jewish settlements next week, when it releases two dozen Palestinian prisoners, according to multiple reports.

"Israel will declare new building in the settlements next week," an Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters on Wednesday.

The announcement will likely draw sharp criticism from the United States, which recently warned Israel not to engage in such projects in the near future. Palestinian negotiators have said it could damage already weak negotiations.

One of Israel’s major news outlets, Channel 2 TV, also reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to make an announcement for “massive construction” next week.
The official who spoke to Reuters did not indicate how many units would be included in the plan, or where.


Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/middle-east-north-africa/194003-reports-israel-to-announce-new-settlements

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Gal-On: Netanyahu's Giving Obama The Finger

Meretz leader expresses disappointment in Netanyahu's announcement to expand settlement construction amid upcoming prisoner release.

By GIL HOFFMAN
12/26/2013 13:37

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's decision to announce construction tenders in settlements ahead of the third round of Palestinian prisoner releases is an attempt to create facts on the ground and prevent the American administration from advancing a diplomatic agreement, Meretz leader Zehava Gal-On said Thursday.

"Netanyahu is giving the American administration the finger," Gal-On said. "There does not need to be a connection between building in the territories and releasing prisoners. As long as there is no agreement with the Palestinians on the future of the settlements, expanding settlements is adding insult to injury."

Likud MK Moshe Feiglin agreed that construction and prisoner releases should not be connected.

"Construction in Judea and Samaria in exchange for terrorists perverts the value of settlement," Feiglin wrote on Twitter.

http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Gal-On-Bibis-giving-Obama-the-finger-336230

[elleng]

1. 'expanding settlements is adding insult to injury'

What else is new?

[sakabatou]

2. *facepalm*

[Bjorn Against]

3. Then the US needs to tell them they either halt the construction or all US funds will be cut off

[madrchsod]

4. that will never happen.

israel has to many friends in the media and in washington dc that will always look the other way when it comes to israel.

[Bjorn Against]

6. I know it is unlikely, but it does need to happen

Unfortunately there are a lot of things that need to happen but never do because the people in power don't want them to happen.

[yurbud]

13. as soon as the oil dries up in Israel's neighbors, so will Israel's clout

until the Bush administration, they were our "bad cop" in the neighborhood.

when we don't care about the neighborhood anymore, DC will treat Israel with as much regard as they do disabled veterans or obsolete weapons.

[BlueToTheBone]

5. Does anyone burn Netanyahu in effigy?

He is a monster and he should reside in Hell (if there is one) with *.

[Jesus Malverde]

8. I'm not sure he's a monster.

More likely a cynical opportunist, very much like our own George Bush. He's the most visible and obnoxious right wing politician we see, but he is by no means the most extreme right wing Israeli politician.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

11. The very idea that some are worse,

Lieberman, for example, is even more scary.

[Jesus Malverde]

7. The people who end up in these homes are victims themselves.

Last edited Fri Dec 27, 2013, 02:46 AM - Edit history (1)

These movements are not organic and natural, they are forced, unnatural and meant to cause conflict and discomfort.

The sunny, socially optimistic, forward looking, egalitarian kibbutz is replaced with an socially insular, settler village, living under stormy skies, with fear as the dominant emotional glue.

Building government housing projects, for teahadists, on the Mexican border might be a parallel. The people living there are not going to be a happy, socially well adjusted bunch. They'ed be a bunch of paranoid right wing nuts on a nationalist/racist mission or people with limited choices and no self determination.

A teahada-ville on the Mexican border, would be a crappy place to live.

[davidpdx]

9. Might as well assume they are going to do this far into the future

There is no reason to thing they will stop. The more this is done the less chance there will ever be peace in the region.

[dipsydoodle]

10. Israel plans 1,400 more West Bank settlement homes, official says

(Reuters) - Israel plans to build a further 1,400 homes in its settlements in the occupied West Bank, and will announce the projects next week after releasing a group of Palestinian prisoners, an Israeli government official said on Friday.

The Palestinians have said any further expansion of Israeli settlements on land they seek for a state could derail U.S.-brokered peace talks that resumed in July after a three-year break.

Israel has been expected to release about two dozen Palestinian prisoners, the third group to be freed since the negotiations restarted, by the middle of next week and to announce a new settlement push of hitherto undisclosed size shortly after.

The official said about 600 homes would be announced in Ramat Shlomo, a settlement of mainly Ultra-Orthodox Jews located in an area of the West Bank that Israel annexed to Jerusalem in a move unrecognized internationally.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/12/27/uk-palestinians-israel-idUKBRE9BQ01S20131227

[Comrade Grumpy]

12. US To Wag Finger Angrily, Send More Money n/t