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Israel has approved the construction of a new settlement in the occupied West Bank for the first time in more than 10 years, officials said on Tuesday, in a move slammed by the Palestinians and a rights group.

The defense ministry gave the go-ahead for the construction of a new settlement in the northern Jordan Valley, a spokeswoman said.

"The ministry has given its green light for construction of 30 houses, conforming the promise given by the previous defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, to rehouse residents of some settlements in Gaza who were evacuated in 2005," a defense ministry spokeswoman said.

It marks the first time since 1992 that the Israeli authorities have officially authorized the construction of a new settlement in the occupied West Bank, the anti-settlement Peace Now watchdog group said.

The authorities have approved the expansion of existing settlements in the West Bank.

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Under the terms of the peace roadmap launched in June 2003, Israel was meant to freeze all settlement construction in the West Bank.

The plan has made meager progress since its launch and Israel says it will not be bound by its commitments until the Palestinians put a halt to attacks.

All settlements in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six Day War, are considered illegal under international law.

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http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1071295

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A spokeswoman for the American consulate in Jerusalem, which deals with the West Bank, said a new settlement would be troubling. “We’re looking into it, and if turns out to be a new settlement, we would be very concerned, given Israel’s obligations under the road map,” said Micaela Schweitzer-Bluhm, the spokeswoman.

The road map calls for a freeze in settlement building in the first phase and a Palestinian push to dismantle terrorist groups. Israel says that the dismantling should come first and that no such action has taken place. But it has separately promised the Bush administration that it would build only within existing settlement structures to account for natural growth, “thickening” the settlements but not expanding them physically.

Israel also promised that it would dismantle more than 20 illegal outposts set up since March 2001, but it has dismantled only one, under an Israeli court order.

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The U.S. government and all other governments providing military and economic assistance to Israel must cut off that assistance until Israel agrees to cancel this settlement construction and dismantle all other West Bank settlements.

It won't happen, but it should.

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
There is only one thing to do.

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Why limit yourself to just one?

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:

The Israeli government no longer has any right to claim to be for peace.

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
Well, they sort of did when Barak was in. But they pissed it away but not offering the Palestinians a REAL 2 state solution.

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Every individual has their own point in time when they think Israel "Changed", however, it's clear to me that Israel has always acted in bad faith. If you read the earliest of the Zionist blueprints, they make clear statements of displacement and ethnic cleansing.

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:

It's time to make that state face reality:
It has no right to expect massive U.S. military and financial aid if its going to act in a way it knows will continue to destablize the Middle East.

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Why should it expect otherwise? You didn't really buy all of that peace plan hooey that's been shovelled for years, did you? The US funds Israel with the expectation that it is on the vanguard of destabilizing the ME.

[ 27 December 2006: Message edited by: Legless-Marine ]

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Well, they sort of did when Barak was in. But they pissed it away but not offering the Palestinians a REAL 2 state solution.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

Oh come on, do you SERIOUSLY believe that there was ever ANYTHING Israel could have offered the Palestinans that they would have ever accepted - apart from offering to have the entire population of Israel voluntarily emigrate to Antarctica?

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Yes. Particularly during the 1970's and 1980's, before the first Intifada, a vast majority of Palestinians would have been happy with Israel pulling back to the 1967 borders so they could have a viable state and some arrangement of compensation in lieu of the Right of Return. In fact, I'd say that was still definitely the case during the Oslo period. Now, however, a greater proportion of the population has become radicalised. Even still, the middle-of-the-road Palestinian would likely still accept a viable two-state solution involving the dismantling of the West Bank settlements beyond the Green Line (or some territorial exchange to address more entrenched settlement blocks like those near Jerusalem).

[ 27 December 2006: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

Oh come on, do you SERIOUSLY believe that there was ever ANYTHING Israel could have offered the Palestinans that they would have ever accepted - apart from offering to have the entire population of Israel voluntarily emigrate to Antarctica?

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Well yeah. The dismantlement of all settlements, a CONTINGUOUS Palestinian state comprising all of the West Bank and Gaza as opposed to the meaningless cantons that only included the useless parts of the land, at least a symbolic Right of Return, the capital at East Jerusalem, compensation for the home demolitions and an apology for everybody being kicked out in '48. That and maybe an admission that Palestine was NEVER "a land without people".

Or if even Israel had treated the Palestinians as equals in the negotiations rather than treating Palestinians as their inferiors and Palestinian statehood as a privelege to be earned rather than accepting it as a natural right.

It was only after Israel conquered all that Territory in 1967 that all of sudden they decide that maybe letting Israel exist wasn't such a bad idea after all.

It has been said though that in the Middl;e East you have to ignore what people say in private and only pay attention to what they say in public and Arafat always had a habit of telling westerners in private in English that he was in favour of a two state solution, but then in Arabic to his own people it was all "death to Jews etc..."

At some point the Palestinans will have to have leadership that is willing to prepare their people for peace. That didn't happen in the 90s.

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The dismantlement of all settlements, a CONTINGUOUS Palestinian state comprising all of the West Bank and Gaza as opposed to the meaningless cantons that only included the useless parts of the land, at least a symbolic Right of Return, the capital at East Jerusalem, compensation for the home demolitions and an apology for everybody being kicked out in '48.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
But the Palestinians had all these things before 1948 and 1967 and yet they refused any and all entreaties for peace back then.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

Probably the bext solution of all (not that it is probably realistic) would bne to reincorporate the West Bank and gaza into Jordan since the vast majority of Jordan is already Palestinian and then there could be a very viable Palestine made up of Jordan and all or most of the occupied terrories. Then all we need to do is give the Jordanian royal family a private islanmd in the Caribbean to live in forever.

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Did anyone ever tell you that you are a racist?

[ 27 December 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

It would be no different than walking up to Ben-Gurion and Begin in 1948 and telling them that their supporters could just move to Brooklyn or St. Urbain's street in Montreal.

I can't believe you'd lower yourself to such an insulting old Likudnik canard, Stockholm. You really should be ashamed of yourself.

Even YOU would have to admit that there was no excuse for authorizing the new settlement.

Also, the general historical consensus is now that the expulsion of the North African Jewish communities was a response, a stupid, destructive and self-defeating response but a response nonetheless to the expusion of 750,000 Palestinians under Plan Daled.

Nobody has moral superiority on that one, Stocks.

[ 27 December 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 27 December 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

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Also, Stockholm, did anybody tell you that the "they could just move to Jordan" suggestion is the most insulting proposal that could possibly be made to Palestinians?

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[ 27 December 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

There are already 30-odd Muslim majority countries in the world. There are already 20-odd Arab Muslim countries in the world. There is already a country made up of the eastern 2/3 of Palestine. How many Palestines do we need 1? 2? 3?

Besides i thought that all these boundaries were leftover from colonial days that according to the tenets of Nasserist and Ba'athist Arab nationalism, all Arabs shoudl be in one nation. Creating a Greater Palestine made up of Jordan and occupied terrories woulod be the first step, then why not invite Syria to join, then mayb e Egypt etc... and eventually the dream of one Arab empire stretching from Casablanca to Baghdad could finally be a reality!

I'm just looking for a creative way of creating a viable Palestinian state that isn't the size of PEI

[ 27 December 2006: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Before 1967 the west bank was an integral part of Jordan and everyone seemed happy with that. Why not return to the status quo ante-bellum (and through in Gaza too while we are at it).

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No one was happy with that. Even the other Arab countries never recognized Jordan's 1948 annexation of the West Bank, which it conived with the British Foreign Office and the Jewish Agency.

In fact, only Britain, the country that installed the Hashemites in Jordan had the gall to recognize it.

[ 27 December 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

I suppose if the "Jordanians" (aka as East Palestinians) wanted to, they could have a referendum on expelling the west bank from Jordan (Palestine), but it just seems to me that a Jordanian solution would help create a viable state.

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The United States has criticised Israel's decision to approve the construction of a new Jewish settlement in the West Bank.

In a rare rebuke of its close ally, the State Department said such a construction would violate the peace plan known as the roadmap. [...]

State Department spokesman Gonzo Gallegos urged Israel to comply with the internationally-backed blueprint for peace.

"The establishment of a new settlement or the expansion of an existing settlement would violate Israel's obligations under the roadmap," he said.

"The US calls on Israel to meet its roadmap obligations and avoid taking steps that could be viewed as predetermining the outcome of final-status negotiations [with the Palestinians]."

Earlier the European Union also expressed its "deep concern" at Israel's decision.

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
The old "Jordan is the Palestinian State" line was never anything but a Likudnik talking point, with connection to reality.

Give it a rest, Stocks, you're better than that.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
The Likudnicks tried to claim that Jordan as it now stands was the one and only Palestinian state. I'm saying why not create a Palestinian super-state made up of both Palestines - east and west bank.

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Superficially, I think that would work rather well for Palestinians, but only in a geographical climate that would facilitate such. In the present, cantonized situation, such discussion could lead to advocation of population transfer to the "Palestinian homeland".

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Originally posted by Briguy:

No, he's not.

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You guys are a harsh bunch. Instead of slamming the guy, why not explain your counter-position?

Fundamentally, Arab unwillingness to harbour more Palestinian refugees does not obviate Israel's responsibility for making them refugees. The areas in the West Bank and around Jerusalem and the Jordan river, are some of the only cultivatable land in the region.

The reality of the trope about "driving the Jews into the sea," is that Palestinians have been "driven into the desert."

[ 28 December 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Legless-Marine:

You guys are a harsh bunch. Instead of slamming the guy, why not explain your counter-position?

Although not realistic in the current situation, his proposal did not strike me as unreasonable.

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