Read the following:
- AP: "Showdown looms over West Bank construction curb"
- CS Monitor: "Israel settlement freeze shields dismantling of illegal outposts"
- Yedioth Ahronoth: "One Hand Freezes, the Other Invests"
- AP: "Settlers protest in Jerusalem against freeze"
- Jerusalem Post: "West Bank building up despite freeze"
- Time: "Protests Mount Against Israel's Settlement Freeze"
AP: "Showdown looms over West Bank construction curb"
By STEVEN GUTKIN and AMY TEIBEL (AP) - 12 December 2009
ELON MOREH, West Bank -- From this Jewish settlement in the West Bank, calls are mounting for Israeli soldiers to cross a sacred line and defy orders to enforce a slowdown of Israeli construction on lands claimed by the Palestinians.
Anxious to preserve the army's role as the country's great unifier, Israeli authorities have jailed defiant soldiers, issued stern warnings to rebellious rabbis and recommended expelling one seminary from a program combining religious study and military service.
Though still on the fringes, the call to defiance points to the dilemma Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces in trying to mollify the Obama administration and draw the Palestinians back to peace talks by curtailing new settlement building in the West Bank for 10 months.
The Palestinians have not been lured. For them, the real issue is the half million Jewish settlers already living in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, their expanding towns and villages eating away at the Palestinian dream of an independent state.
Palestinians and international critics are skeptical about Netanyahu's freeze, noting that work will continue on some 3,000 apartments and houses already approved, and proceed unimpeded in east Jerusalem, where Palestinians hope to have their future capital.
But the settlers worry that it's the first step toward eventual eviction.
Some have destroyed Palestinian property, blocked inspectors from enforcing the building curbs and rallied 10,000 protesters outside Netanyahu's Jerusalem home last week. The settlers are also raising money to build more homes.
Extremists have taken to attacking Palestinians each time the government acts against settlers in a strategy known as the "price tag." That phrase was scrawled on the wall of a Palestinian mosque not far from Elon Moreh that was attacked by vandals who burned prayer carpets and holy books on Friday, the Muslim day of rest.
"We have a feeling that this (building freeze) won't stop in 10 months, that it will snowball," said Sraya Demsky, standing on a hilltop in Elon Moreh.
The settlement of 2,000 people stands in the area where, according to the Old Testament, God promised Abraham: "To your offspring I will give this land." Settlers regard it as one of the crown jewels of Israel's 40-year drive to populate the West Bank with Jews.
Like most Israeli men, Demsky does annual reserve duty in the military and could conceivably find himself having to take action against his fellow settlers. But the 31-year-old father of four believes God's authority supersedes the army's.
"I wouldn't do it," he said.
The military recently punished six soldiers for refusing to take part in the demolition of two unauthorized settler houses in the West Bank. The ringleaders were educated in Elon Moreh's yeshiva, or seminary.
Matan Vilnai, the deputy defense minister, last week met with Eliezer Melamed, a settler rabbi who has supported insubordination, and threatened to cut off his seminary's funding if he did not publicly recant.
When President Barack Obama took office a year ago, he demanded a complete halt to all Israeli settlement building. Netanyahu refused and Washington backed down, dismaying Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Obama "forced the Palestinian leadership into a corner," said Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem think tank. As he sees it, Abbas couldn't let himself appear to be acquiescing in the climbdown. "Mahmoud Abbas can't be any less demanding than Obama," he said.
Paradoxically, scenes of Israeli security forces confronting settlers could help Abbas if they make the Palestinians feel they have wrung a significant concession from Israel.
The settlers also have good reason to be worried. Although their population has mushroomed since Israel first began talking peace with the Palestinians in the 1990s, their political clout has waned.
Israelis are increasingly questioning the wisdom of continuing the occupation of Arab lands captured in the 1967 Mideast war, recognizing that it is a recipe for a binational state in which Palestinians, with their higher birthrates, will eventually outnumber the Jewish population.
In the past, any move to curb settlements risked bringing down the government. This time, insiders say, the hawks will stop short of toppling Netanyahu's coalition in case it's replaced be one willing to make even bigger concessions.
Four years ago Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip and evicted its 8,000 settlers, despite their fierce campaign to reverse the order. This time settlers are gearing up for a much harsher struggle.
Despite Netanyahu's image as a hard-liner, even Peace Now, Israel's dovish anti-settlement movement, acknowledges he has gone further than any of his predecessors in reining in settlement construction. Building has been limited for the first time in the major settlement blocs Israel hopes to keep in any final peace deal. Another first is the curtailment of private as well as public construction.
"That is what makes it historic," said Peace Now's Hagit Ofran. "The question is whether there will be enforcement."
Netanyahu has to reconcile conflicting demands in ways that expose him to accusations that he is playing a double game -- portraying himself to the world as eager to negotiate peace, while privately reassuring settlers that the building restrictions are temporary, and that his true aim is to preserve settlements, not dismantle them.
In another controversial measure last week, he proposed special provisions that would mean extra monetary benefits for tens of thousands of settlers
"It's not an easy decision for him. He sees the settlers as loyal Israelis, as proud Israelis, as patriotic Israelis," said Mark Regev, Netanyahu's spokesman. However, "he said publicly a number of times the ultimate status of the settlements will be determined in peace talks between us and the Palestinians."
There is no sign those talks will take place any time soon.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h2FgBEpzs3-tADh8crePtLfcXgDAD9CHS70G0
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CS Monitor: "Israel settlement freeze shields dismantling of illegal outposts"
Israel told the Supreme Court that it would be too busy enforcing the new 10-month settlement freeze to enforce a long standing order to dismantle the illegal outposts of ideologically driven settlers.
By Joshua Mitnick Correspondent
posted December 11, 2009
Tel Aviv, Israel --
Israel's settlement freeze is supposed to clamp down on new housing starts in the West Bank, but it's also shielding illegally built outposts and settler houses from demolition.
The enforcement of an order to evacuate outposts - a step demanded by the US to help restart peace talks with the Palestinians - has been put off for years. Palestinians and Israeli peace groups have been challenging the delay in Israel's Supreme Court, which requested from Israel a timetable for the demolitions.
The state replied last week that enforcing the 10-month freeze on new settlement building in the West Bank would require so much manpower that it can't dismantle unauthorized settler outposts right now.
"The new situation requires postponement of other law enforcement activities," Israel's state attorney informed the court regarding a petition to implement evacuation orders against outposts with about 250 people. "The political echelon is conducting a review of the influence on the freeze on previous demolition orders."
Critics doubt sincerity of freeze
The statement is fueling concern that, despite public clashes with Jewish settlers over the partial freeze, the moratorium will prove to be little more than a public relations mirage.
"The state doesn't really want to confront the settlers. They aren't serious about enforcing the law," says Hagit Ofran, who petitioned Israel's High Court against six unauthorized outposts on behalf of dovish group Peace Now. "You can get away with the illegal construction. There's a lot of doubt about the sincerity of enforcing the freeze."
Netanyahu's government drew additional fire this week after designating settlements with some 100,000 residents as "preferred" regions for public assistance. The move was dubbed by the Israeli daily newspaper Maariv as "double-talk" on settlement expansion.
That hasn't reassured settlers and their allies, some 15,000 of whom protested outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Jerusalem residence on Wednesday night.
"When Netanyahu is being pressured to freeze the settlements, he has to find a way to ease on the pressure," says Gideon Doron, a political science professor at Tel Aviv University. "For the survival of the Likud as a party, he comes and says, that, 'While I give you a slap in the face, I'm also giving you some sweets.' "
Israel counters criticism
Government spokesperson Mark Regev said the government is serious about the freeze and that the settlements tapped for assistance would get subsidies for only social welfare rather than new construction.
But critics of Israel's settlement policy point out that if the government doesn't take action against illegal building, the freeze will be rendered meaningless. For years, government officials have spoken of the need to enforce the law in unauthorized outposts, but have never actually made good on the promise in some two dozen settlements where about 2,000 highly ideological settlers live.
Even though the state has cleared several uninhabited outposts, Mr. Regev conceded that, "of course more remains to be done."
Just the latest excuse
A decision to act against the illegal outposts has potentially grave consequences. It would likely spark worse clashes with settlers and would swiftly escalate political crisis with Netanyahu's right-wing supporters. The state would also risk a crisis within the army from ideological soldiers who have threatened to refuse orders.
But Ofran says enough is enough.
"They are putting on hold handling of illegal outposts until God knows," she says. "They have been making excuses every time. Now the excuse is the freeze."
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2009/1211/Israel-settlement-freeze-shields-dismantling-of-illegal-outposts
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12/10
Yedioth Ahronoth: "One Hand Freezes, the Other Invests"
by Itamar Eichner -- While thousands of settlers demonstrated opposite the Prime Minister's Residence against the settlement construction freeze, last night the Prime Minister's Bureau publicized the new map of national priority areas, which grants additional budgets to some 110,000 settlers.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is troubled by the severe crisis of confidence he now suffers with the settlers, instructed Prime Minister's Office Director General Eyal Gabai to revise the national priority areas map so as to upgrade the status of a long list of settlements in Judea and Samaria, the overwhelming majority of which are isolated settlements that lie outside the major settlement blocs. The new map of national priority areas, which will be presented to the cabinet on Sunday for a vote, includes now dozens of settlements in Judea and Samaria. Those settlements will be allocated an overall sum of NIS 110 million in supplementary budgets, at a rate of NIS 1,000 per resident. The residents who live on those settlements constitute 5% of all the residents who live in national priority areas, as defined by the newly revised map.
Officials in the Prime Minister's Bureau underscored that while the principal criterion for including the settlements in questions in the national priority areas was security-related, this is the first time in a number of years that settlements, such as Kiryat Arba, the Jewish Quarter in Hebron, Nokdim, Psagot, Elon Moreh, Itamar, Emmanuel and other settlements, have now been added onto the list of communities that are entitled to special supplementary budgets in education, employment, infrastructure and housing, among other spheres.
Prime Minister's Office Director General Eyal Gabai said yesterday that the new national priority areas map will affect 1.9 million people, who constitute 26% of all Israeli residents. The overall cost of the supplementary budgets is estimated to reach approximately NIS 2 billion. The new map will also have a revolutionary impact on the Arab population in Israel. While in the past only 8% of the residents of national priority areas were Arabs, now 40% of the residents to be affected are Israeli Arabs--which is twice their relative size in the general population. "This proves that the map is fair and egalitarian, and that was understood by the MKs in the Labor Party and the Likud as well," added Gabai.
Every minister is obliged to allocate more resources in relative terms to communities that lie inside national priority areas than to those communities that lie outside the national priority areas, such as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The Education Ministry, for example, is obliged to allocate a greater number of teaching hours, the National Infrastructure Ministry is obliged to allocate a supplementary sum for paving roads and laying train tracks, and the Housing and Construction Ministry is obliged to grant discounts on the allocation of lands from the Israel Lands Administration. Gabai stressed that the housing benefits would not be extended to the residents of Judea and Samaria for as long as the temporary 10-month construction freeze was in effect.
Gabai said that the newly revised national priority areas map was not connected in any way to the decision to suspend construction in the settlements. He said that work on the map has been under way for a number of months, and that not a single community was added to the national priority areas in the wake of the decision to impose a construction moratorium. The central issue that was taken into account with respect to settlements in Judea and Samaria, said Gabai, was security, and was based on the recommendations of the security establishment.
Officials in the Defense Minister's Bureau confirmed that settlements were placed inside the national priority areas principally because of security concerns and that this was done with the defense minister's consent. They added that Barak also demanded that communities from the Negev and Galilee be incorporated into the national priority areas as well, and that his demand was accepted. Another area that was given a boost was the Lower Galilee, which thus far has been defined as a B-Level Priority Area.
Zvi Singer adds: Peace Now asserts that no fewer than 3,492 new housing units are going to be built in settlements during the 10-month construction freeze. The housing units in question were approved in advance and their foundations have already been laid. For example, approval was given to build 476 housing units in Maale Adumim; 146 housing units were approved in Ariel, and 860 housing units are going to be built in Modiin Illit.
AP: "Settlers protest in Jerusalem against freeze"
By ARON HELLER (AP)
JERUSALEM -- Jewish settlers planned a mass protest in downtown Jerusalem on Wednesday night in what they said would be the largest show of resistance to the government's new slowdown on new housing construction in the West Bank.
Police expected thousands of people to attend the demonstration, to take place outside the residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The size of the turnout could reflect how widespread support is for increasingly fierce settler resistance to the government building ban.
Separately, Israel's parliament on Wednesday gave preliminary approval to a piece of legislation that would require a national referendum on any peace deal that gives up control of east Jerusalem or the Golan Heights.
Netanyahu announced the 10-month halt in most West Bank construction late last month in an attempt to restart peace talks, which broke down a year ago. The new restrictions have infuriated Jewish settlers and their backers in Netanyahu's hard-line coalition, and government inspectors have been harassed while trying to enforce the ban.
The settlers have been struggling to regain their strength since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, uprooting all 8,000 settlers who were living there.
At the Wednesday protest, lawmakers and settler leaders planned to speak out against Netanyahu, whom they accuse of caving to American pressure.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, himself a settler, said the protest was legitimate.
"If someone came to you and froze construction on your house while you were building it, you would also object," he told Israel Radio. "I just hope the struggle and the resistance remain within the framework of a legitimate political protest that is acceptable in a democratic state."
While Netanyahu has painted his order as an unprecedented concession, the Palestinians have dismissed it as insincere and insufficient, since it does not include east Jerusalem or 3,000 homes already under construction in the West Bank. The Palestinians claim all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem as parts of a future independent state. They say they will not resume talks until all settlement construction ceases.
Speaking after a meeting of top ministers and security chiefs on Wednesday, Netanyahu said the Palestinians seem to have adopted a strategy of "rejecting negotiations with Israel."
"This is a mistake. There can be no genuine solution without direct negotiations with Israel, in the framework of which we will reach agreements and arrangements between the sides," he said.
The Israeli settlement watchdog group Peace Now also cast new doubts on the building freeze, saying that building in the West Bank continues to take place at a greater pace than elsewhere in Israel.
"Beyond the political dispute going on around the settlements, the argument of the settlers that they are discriminated against is simply not true," said Peace Now leader Yariv Oppenheimer.
Some 300,000 settlers live in the West Bank, in addition to 180,000 Jewish Israelis living in east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed soon after. Netanyahu opposes any withdrawal from east Jerusalem, which Israel considers part of its eternal undivided capital.
If approved, the measure passed by parliament Wednesday could constrain the ability of any future Israeli government to turn over captured land as part of a peace deal.
While the Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, Syria demands the return of the Golan Heights. Israel captured both areas in the 1967 Mideast war and subsequently annexed them.
The measure was approved by parliament 68 to 22, but it needs to pass two more parliamentary votes to become law.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ioi_0jtO9RjMwPNRoXNCndRPRq3gD9CFSLR80
Jerusalem Post: "West Bank building up despite freeze"
Dec. 9, 2009
by Elana Kirsh
Housing units are being built at a faster rate in Judea and Samaria than in the rest of Israel, according to data released by Peace Now on Wednesday.
The Peace Now report, titled 'Construction Freeze?' noted that despite Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's recently announced 10-month freeze on new housing starts in the West Bank, approved settlement construction is still higher than that in the rest of the country.
During the period of the moratorium, 3,492 housing units were set to be built across the West Bank, which the report said averaged approximately 1,167 units for every 100,000 inhabitants. Within the Green Line, 836 housing units will be built for the same number of inhabitants, according to Central Bureau of Statistics figures quoted in the report.
Peace Now specifically noted that 476 housing units were set to be built in Ma'ale Adumim during the construction freeze, compared to cities of a similar size inside the Green Line, such as 59 in Dimona, and 12 in Or Yehuda. Similarly, 146 housing units were slated for construction in Ariel, compared to 32 in Sderot.
The left-wing movement's report concluded that "settlers' claims of discrimination and attempts to 'dry out' the settlements have no basis in reality, even during the freeze a larger number of housing units than the national average will be built in the Occupied Territories."
In terms of the moratorium itself, the report went on to list at least eight settlements where "fake foundations" had been constructed in an attempt to "obtain a building permit at the last moment." In addition, at least ten other settlements had violated freeze orders, Peace Now said.
Finally, the movement vowed to "report all discoveries of violation of freeze orders directly to the Prime Minister's office and to the Ministry of Defense," and to initiate legal proceedings against those who "take the law into their own hands" in the West Bank.
http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1260181029394&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
Time: "Protests Mount Against Israel's Settlement Freeze"
Israeli settlers are a tough bunch, and not easily deterred by a bit of cold weather -- or, for that matter, by a partial government freeze on construction in the occupied West Bank. Despite the blustery December chill in the Jerusalem air on Wednesday evening, about 10,000 demonstrators, mostly settlers, gathered near the residence of Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu to demand the right to build at will. "Bibi, you can't freeze our spirit!" shouted the lead speaker. "We'll continue to build the land of Israel, with or without you!" (See pictures of heartbreak in the Middle East.)
Tension between the government and the West Bank settlers has been rising since November, when Netanyahu's cabinet called for a 10-month pause in construction, in response to pressure from the U.S. and Europe to stop expanding its grip on territories captured in the war of 1967. Obama had hoped a settlement freeze would enable a resumption of peace talks, because the West Bank and East Jerusalem (together with Gaza) are seen by the Palestinians as the basis of a future state. But the settlers' concept of Israel's boundaries derives from the Bible, and they fear that even the government's temporary freeze signals the beginning of a process that will end with them being forced to give up territory that many believe was given by God to the Jewish people. "How can we be told to give up our rights to build on land that is ours?" said one a demonstrator from the West Bank settlement of Adam, east of Jerusalem.
Despite their fears, Netanyahu's settlement freeze may actually help save the homes of the very people demonstrating against him. Already, the Israeli Prime Minister has used his gesture to blame the deadlock in the peace process on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who, despite U.S. prodding, has refused to restart peace talks as long as settlement construction continues in East Jerusalem. (Netanyahu has exempted Jerusalem from his freeze, claiming all of the Holy City as Israel's and refusing to negotiate over its status.)
The settlement freeze could also help get the U.S. and the other Western powers off Netanyahu's back. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised Netanyahu's partial freeze as "unprecedented" even though she had earlier made an unequivocal demand for an absolute freeze with no exceptions. Now, with settlers staging demonstrations, their leaders muttering about civil disobedience, and radical rabbis urging young soldiers to disobey orders that might conflict with their religious obligations to inhabit Biblical lands, the Israeli leader can tell the West that he would face a civil war if he moved to dismantle settlements.
The reality of the settlement freeze is hardly that. Many settlements have staged civil disobedience actions to prevent government inspectors from entering to make sure construction has halted, some merely by sending schoolgirls out to blockade the main gates. "We'll keep building day or night," an official at the Kedumim settlement told TIME last week. And even Netanyahu has said that when the freeze is over construction can resume as normal in the West Bank, where construction permits are granted at a higher rate than inside Israel, the Israeli activist group Peace Now reported on Wednesday.
Having deflected international pressure on the Palestinian front, Netanyahu hopes to focus U.S. attention on dealing with what he believes is the real threat to Israeli security: Iran. He cites Iran's support of Hamas as reason to avoid relinquishing Israeli control over the West Bank, whose hilltops are well within rocket range of Israel's main cities. Israeli officials are hinting that if President Obama doesn't demonstrate rapid progress in his diplomatic efforts to shut down Tehran's nuclear program, he should step aside and let Israel's air force do the job.
But even as the Israelis focus on the perceived threat from Iran, time is rapidly running out for a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians. Frustrations are running high among Palestinians who have watched two decades of negotiation with the Israelis bring them no closer to statehood. A latticework of Israeli security zones and settlements makes nonsense of the territorial integrity of the West Bank, while a ring of Israeli-controlled space is forming around East Jerusalem, without control of which no Palestinian or Arab leader will be able to accept any peace agreement. Not surprising, then, Palestinian moderates such as Abbas are on the wane; militants are on the rise; and the whispers already talk of a new uprising.
-- With reporting by Aaron J. Klein / Kedumim and Jamil Hamad / Bethlehem
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1946898,00.html
By STEVEN GUTKIN and AMY TEIBEL (AP) - 12 December 2009
ELON MOREH, West Bank -- From this Jewish settlement in the West Bank, calls are mounting for Israeli soldiers to cross a sacred line and defy orders to enforce a slowdown of Israeli construction on lands claimed by the Palestinians.
Anxious to preserve the army's role as the country's great unifier, Israeli authorities have jailed defiant soldiers, issued stern warnings to rebellious rabbis and recommended expelling one seminary from a program combining religious study and military service.
Though still on the fringes, the call to defiance points to the dilemma Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces in trying to mollify the Obama administration and draw the Palestinians back to peace talks by curtailing new settlement building in the West Bank for 10 months.
The Palestinians have not been lured. For them, the real issue is the half million Jewish settlers already living in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, their expanding towns and villages eating away at the Palestinian dream of an independent state.
Palestinians and international critics are skeptical about Netanyahu's freeze, noting that work will continue on some 3,000 apartments and houses already approved, and proceed unimpeded in east Jerusalem, where Palestinians hope to have their future capital.
But the settlers worry that it's the first step toward eventual eviction.
Some have destroyed Palestinian property, blocked inspectors from enforcing the building curbs and rallied 10,000 protesters outside Netanyahu's Jerusalem home last week. The settlers are also raising money to build more homes.
Extremists have taken to attacking Palestinians each time the government acts against settlers in a strategy known as the "price tag." That phrase was scrawled on the wall of a Palestinian mosque not far from Elon Moreh that was attacked by vandals who burned prayer carpets and holy books on Friday, the Muslim day of rest.
"We have a feeling that this (building freeze) won't stop in 10 months, that it will snowball," said Sraya Demsky, standing on a hilltop in Elon Moreh.
The settlement of 2,000 people stands in the area where, according to the Old Testament, God promised Abraham: "To your offspring I will give this land." Settlers regard it as one of the crown jewels of Israel's 40-year drive to populate the West Bank with Jews.
Like most Israeli men, Demsky does annual reserve duty in the military and could conceivably find himself having to take action against his fellow settlers. But the 31-year-old father of four believes God's authority supersedes the army's.
"I wouldn't do it," he said.
The military recently punished six soldiers for refusing to take part in the demolition of two unauthorized settler houses in the West Bank. The ringleaders were educated in Elon Moreh's yeshiva, or seminary.
Matan Vilnai, the deputy defense minister, last week met with Eliezer Melamed, a settler rabbi who has supported insubordination, and threatened to cut off his seminary's funding if he did not publicly recant.
When President Barack Obama took office a year ago, he demanded a complete halt to all Israeli settlement building. Netanyahu refused and Washington backed down, dismaying Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Obama "forced the Palestinian leadership into a corner," said Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem think tank. As he sees it, Abbas couldn't let himself appear to be acquiescing in the climbdown. "Mahmoud Abbas can't be any less demanding than Obama," he said.
Paradoxically, scenes of Israeli security forces confronting settlers could help Abbas if they make the Palestinians feel they have wrung a significant concession from Israel.
The settlers also have good reason to be worried. Although their population has mushroomed since Israel first began talking peace with the Palestinians in the 1990s, their political clout has waned.
Israelis are increasingly questioning the wisdom of continuing the occupation of Arab lands captured in the 1967 Mideast war, recognizing that it is a recipe for a binational state in which Palestinians, with their higher birthrates, will eventually outnumber the Jewish population.
In the past, any move to curb settlements risked bringing down the government. This time, insiders say, the hawks will stop short of toppling Netanyahu's coalition in case it's replaced be one willing to make even bigger concessions.
Four years ago Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip and evicted its 8,000 settlers, despite their fierce campaign to reverse the order. This time settlers are gearing up for a much harsher struggle.
Despite Netanyahu's image as a hard-liner, even Peace Now, Israel's dovish anti-settlement movement, acknowledges he has gone further than any of his predecessors in reining in settlement construction. Building has been limited for the first time in the major settlement blocs Israel hopes to keep in any final peace deal. Another first is the curtailment of private as well as public construction.
"That is what makes it historic," said Peace Now's Hagit Ofran. "The question is whether there will be enforcement."
Netanyahu has to reconcile conflicting demands in ways that expose him to accusations that he is playing a double game -- portraying himself to the world as eager to negotiate peace, while privately reassuring settlers that the building restrictions are temporary, and that his true aim is to preserve settlements, not dismantle them.
In another controversial measure last week, he proposed special provisions that would mean extra monetary benefits for tens of thousands of settlers
"It's not an easy decision for him. He sees the settlers as loyal Israelis, as proud Israelis, as patriotic Israelis," said Mark Regev, Netanyahu's spokesman. However, "he said publicly a number of times the ultimate status of the settlements will be determined in peace talks between us and the Palestinians."
There is no sign those talks will take place any time soon.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h2FgBEpzs3-tADh8crePtLfcXgDAD9CHS70G0
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CS Monitor: "Israel settlement freeze shields dismantling of illegal outposts"
Israel told the Supreme Court that it would be too busy enforcing the new 10-month settlement freeze to enforce a long standing order to dismantle the illegal outposts of ideologically driven settlers.
By Joshua Mitnick Correspondent
posted December 11, 2009
Tel Aviv, Israel --
Israel's settlement freeze is supposed to clamp down on new housing starts in the West Bank, but it's also shielding illegally built outposts and settler houses from demolition.
The enforcement of an order to evacuate outposts - a step demanded by the US to help restart peace talks with the Palestinians - has been put off for years. Palestinians and Israeli peace groups have been challenging the delay in Israel's Supreme Court, which requested from Israel a timetable for the demolitions.
The state replied last week that enforcing the 10-month freeze on new settlement building in the West Bank would require so much manpower that it can't dismantle unauthorized settler outposts right now.
"The new situation requires postponement of other law enforcement activities," Israel's state attorney informed the court regarding a petition to implement evacuation orders against outposts with about 250 people. "The political echelon is conducting a review of the influence on the freeze on previous demolition orders."
Critics doubt sincerity of freeze
The statement is fueling concern that, despite public clashes with Jewish settlers over the partial freeze, the moratorium will prove to be little more than a public relations mirage.
"The state doesn't really want to confront the settlers. They aren't serious about enforcing the law," says Hagit Ofran, who petitioned Israel's High Court against six unauthorized outposts on behalf of dovish group Peace Now. "You can get away with the illegal construction. There's a lot of doubt about the sincerity of enforcing the freeze."
Netanyahu's government drew additional fire this week after designating settlements with some 100,000 residents as "preferred" regions for public assistance. The move was dubbed by the Israeli daily newspaper Maariv as "double-talk" on settlement expansion.
That hasn't reassured settlers and their allies, some 15,000 of whom protested outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Jerusalem residence on Wednesday night.
"When Netanyahu is being pressured to freeze the settlements, he has to find a way to ease on the pressure," says Gideon Doron, a political science professor at Tel Aviv University. "For the survival of the Likud as a party, he comes and says, that, 'While I give you a slap in the face, I'm also giving you some sweets.' "
Israel counters criticism
Government spokesperson Mark Regev said the government is serious about the freeze and that the settlements tapped for assistance would get subsidies for only social welfare rather than new construction.
But critics of Israel's settlement policy point out that if the government doesn't take action against illegal building, the freeze will be rendered meaningless. For years, government officials have spoken of the need to enforce the law in unauthorized outposts, but have never actually made good on the promise in some two dozen settlements where about 2,000 highly ideological settlers live.
Even though the state has cleared several uninhabited outposts, Mr. Regev conceded that, "of course more remains to be done."
Just the latest excuse
A decision to act against the illegal outposts has potentially grave consequences. It would likely spark worse clashes with settlers and would swiftly escalate political crisis with Netanyahu's right-wing supporters. The state would also risk a crisis within the army from ideological soldiers who have threatened to refuse orders.
But Ofran says enough is enough.
"They are putting on hold handling of illegal outposts until God knows," she says. "They have been making excuses every time. Now the excuse is the freeze."
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2009/1211/Israel-settlement-freeze-shields-dismantling-of-illegal-outposts
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12/10
Yedioth Ahronoth: "One Hand Freezes, the Other Invests"
by Itamar Eichner -- While thousands of settlers demonstrated opposite the Prime Minister's Residence against the settlement construction freeze, last night the Prime Minister's Bureau publicized the new map of national priority areas, which grants additional budgets to some 110,000 settlers.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is troubled by the severe crisis of confidence he now suffers with the settlers, instructed Prime Minister's Office Director General Eyal Gabai to revise the national priority areas map so as to upgrade the status of a long list of settlements in Judea and Samaria, the overwhelming majority of which are isolated settlements that lie outside the major settlement blocs. The new map of national priority areas, which will be presented to the cabinet on Sunday for a vote, includes now dozens of settlements in Judea and Samaria. Those settlements will be allocated an overall sum of NIS 110 million in supplementary budgets, at a rate of NIS 1,000 per resident. The residents who live on those settlements constitute 5% of all the residents who live in national priority areas, as defined by the newly revised map.
Officials in the Prime Minister's Bureau underscored that while the principal criterion for including the settlements in questions in the national priority areas was security-related, this is the first time in a number of years that settlements, such as Kiryat Arba, the Jewish Quarter in Hebron, Nokdim, Psagot, Elon Moreh, Itamar, Emmanuel and other settlements, have now been added onto the list of communities that are entitled to special supplementary budgets in education, employment, infrastructure and housing, among other spheres.
Prime Minister's Office Director General Eyal Gabai said yesterday that the new national priority areas map will affect 1.9 million people, who constitute 26% of all Israeli residents. The overall cost of the supplementary budgets is estimated to reach approximately NIS 2 billion. The new map will also have a revolutionary impact on the Arab population in Israel. While in the past only 8% of the residents of national priority areas were Arabs, now 40% of the residents to be affected are Israeli Arabs--which is twice their relative size in the general population. "This proves that the map is fair and egalitarian, and that was understood by the MKs in the Labor Party and the Likud as well," added Gabai.
Every minister is obliged to allocate more resources in relative terms to communities that lie inside national priority areas than to those communities that lie outside the national priority areas, such as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The Education Ministry, for example, is obliged to allocate a greater number of teaching hours, the National Infrastructure Ministry is obliged to allocate a supplementary sum for paving roads and laying train tracks, and the Housing and Construction Ministry is obliged to grant discounts on the allocation of lands from the Israel Lands Administration. Gabai stressed that the housing benefits would not be extended to the residents of Judea and Samaria for as long as the temporary 10-month construction freeze was in effect.
Gabai said that the newly revised national priority areas map was not connected in any way to the decision to suspend construction in the settlements. He said that work on the map has been under way for a number of months, and that not a single community was added to the national priority areas in the wake of the decision to impose a construction moratorium. The central issue that was taken into account with respect to settlements in Judea and Samaria, said Gabai, was security, and was based on the recommendations of the security establishment.
Officials in the Defense Minister's Bureau confirmed that settlements were placed inside the national priority areas principally because of security concerns and that this was done with the defense minister's consent. They added that Barak also demanded that communities from the Negev and Galilee be incorporated into the national priority areas as well, and that his demand was accepted. Another area that was given a boost was the Lower Galilee, which thus far has been defined as a B-Level Priority Area.
Zvi Singer adds: Peace Now asserts that no fewer than 3,492 new housing units are going to be built in settlements during the 10-month construction freeze. The housing units in question were approved in advance and their foundations have already been laid. For example, approval was given to build 476 housing units in Maale Adumim; 146 housing units were approved in Ariel, and 860 housing units are going to be built in Modiin Illit.
AP: "Settlers protest in Jerusalem against freeze"
By ARON HELLER (AP)
JERUSALEM -- Jewish settlers planned a mass protest in downtown Jerusalem on Wednesday night in what they said would be the largest show of resistance to the government's new slowdown on new housing construction in the West Bank.
Police expected thousands of people to attend the demonstration, to take place outside the residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The size of the turnout could reflect how widespread support is for increasingly fierce settler resistance to the government building ban.
Separately, Israel's parliament on Wednesday gave preliminary approval to a piece of legislation that would require a national referendum on any peace deal that gives up control of east Jerusalem or the Golan Heights.
Netanyahu announced the 10-month halt in most West Bank construction late last month in an attempt to restart peace talks, which broke down a year ago. The new restrictions have infuriated Jewish settlers and their backers in Netanyahu's hard-line coalition, and government inspectors have been harassed while trying to enforce the ban.
The settlers have been struggling to regain their strength since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, uprooting all 8,000 settlers who were living there.
At the Wednesday protest, lawmakers and settler leaders planned to speak out against Netanyahu, whom they accuse of caving to American pressure.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, himself a settler, said the protest was legitimate.
"If someone came to you and froze construction on your house while you were building it, you would also object," he told Israel Radio. "I just hope the struggle and the resistance remain within the framework of a legitimate political protest that is acceptable in a democratic state."
While Netanyahu has painted his order as an unprecedented concession, the Palestinians have dismissed it as insincere and insufficient, since it does not include east Jerusalem or 3,000 homes already under construction in the West Bank. The Palestinians claim all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem as parts of a future independent state. They say they will not resume talks until all settlement construction ceases.
Speaking after a meeting of top ministers and security chiefs on Wednesday, Netanyahu said the Palestinians seem to have adopted a strategy of "rejecting negotiations with Israel."
"This is a mistake. There can be no genuine solution without direct negotiations with Israel, in the framework of which we will reach agreements and arrangements between the sides," he said.
The Israeli settlement watchdog group Peace Now also cast new doubts on the building freeze, saying that building in the West Bank continues to take place at a greater pace than elsewhere in Israel.
"Beyond the political dispute going on around the settlements, the argument of the settlers that they are discriminated against is simply not true," said Peace Now leader Yariv Oppenheimer.
Some 300,000 settlers live in the West Bank, in addition to 180,000 Jewish Israelis living in east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed soon after. Netanyahu opposes any withdrawal from east Jerusalem, which Israel considers part of its eternal undivided capital.
If approved, the measure passed by parliament Wednesday could constrain the ability of any future Israeli government to turn over captured land as part of a peace deal.
While the Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, Syria demands the return of the Golan Heights. Israel captured both areas in the 1967 Mideast war and subsequently annexed them.
The measure was approved by parliament 68 to 22, but it needs to pass two more parliamentary votes to become law.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ioi_0jtO9RjMwPNRoXNCndRPRq3gD9CFSLR80
Jerusalem Post: "West Bank building up despite freeze"
Dec. 9, 2009
by Elana Kirsh
Housing units are being built at a faster rate in Judea and Samaria than in the rest of Israel, according to data released by Peace Now on Wednesday.
The Peace Now report, titled 'Construction Freeze?' noted that despite Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's recently announced 10-month freeze on new housing starts in the West Bank, approved settlement construction is still higher than that in the rest of the country.
During the period of the moratorium, 3,492 housing units were set to be built across the West Bank, which the report said averaged approximately 1,167 units for every 100,000 inhabitants. Within the Green Line, 836 housing units will be built for the same number of inhabitants, according to Central Bureau of Statistics figures quoted in the report.
Peace Now specifically noted that 476 housing units were set to be built in Ma'ale Adumim during the construction freeze, compared to cities of a similar size inside the Green Line, such as 59 in Dimona, and 12 in Or Yehuda. Similarly, 146 housing units were slated for construction in Ariel, compared to 32 in Sderot.
The left-wing movement's report concluded that "settlers' claims of discrimination and attempts to 'dry out' the settlements have no basis in reality, even during the freeze a larger number of housing units than the national average will be built in the Occupied Territories."
In terms of the moratorium itself, the report went on to list at least eight settlements where "fake foundations" had been constructed in an attempt to "obtain a building permit at the last moment." In addition, at least ten other settlements had violated freeze orders, Peace Now said.
Finally, the movement vowed to "report all discoveries of violation of freeze orders directly to the Prime Minister's office and to the Ministry of Defense," and to initiate legal proceedings against those who "take the law into their own hands" in the West Bank.
http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1260181029394&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
Time: "Protests Mount Against Israel's Settlement Freeze"
Israeli settlers are a tough bunch, and not easily deterred by a bit of cold weather -- or, for that matter, by a partial government freeze on construction in the occupied West Bank. Despite the blustery December chill in the Jerusalem air on Wednesday evening, about 10,000 demonstrators, mostly settlers, gathered near the residence of Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu to demand the right to build at will. "Bibi, you can't freeze our spirit!" shouted the lead speaker. "We'll continue to build the land of Israel, with or without you!" (See pictures of heartbreak in the Middle East.)
Tension between the government and the West Bank settlers has been rising since November, when Netanyahu's cabinet called for a 10-month pause in construction, in response to pressure from the U.S. and Europe to stop expanding its grip on territories captured in the war of 1967. Obama had hoped a settlement freeze would enable a resumption of peace talks, because the West Bank and East Jerusalem (together with Gaza) are seen by the Palestinians as the basis of a future state. But the settlers' concept of Israel's boundaries derives from the Bible, and they fear that even the government's temporary freeze signals the beginning of a process that will end with them being forced to give up territory that many believe was given by God to the Jewish people. "How can we be told to give up our rights to build on land that is ours?" said one a demonstrator from the West Bank settlement of Adam, east of Jerusalem.
Despite their fears, Netanyahu's settlement freeze may actually help save the homes of the very people demonstrating against him. Already, the Israeli Prime Minister has used his gesture to blame the deadlock in the peace process on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who, despite U.S. prodding, has refused to restart peace talks as long as settlement construction continues in East Jerusalem. (Netanyahu has exempted Jerusalem from his freeze, claiming all of the Holy City as Israel's and refusing to negotiate over its status.)
The settlement freeze could also help get the U.S. and the other Western powers off Netanyahu's back. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised Netanyahu's partial freeze as "unprecedented" even though she had earlier made an unequivocal demand for an absolute freeze with no exceptions. Now, with settlers staging demonstrations, their leaders muttering about civil disobedience, and radical rabbis urging young soldiers to disobey orders that might conflict with their religious obligations to inhabit Biblical lands, the Israeli leader can tell the West that he would face a civil war if he moved to dismantle settlements.
The reality of the settlement freeze is hardly that. Many settlements have staged civil disobedience actions to prevent government inspectors from entering to make sure construction has halted, some merely by sending schoolgirls out to blockade the main gates. "We'll keep building day or night," an official at the Kedumim settlement told TIME last week. And even Netanyahu has said that when the freeze is over construction can resume as normal in the West Bank, where construction permits are granted at a higher rate than inside Israel, the Israeli activist group Peace Now reported on Wednesday.
Having deflected international pressure on the Palestinian front, Netanyahu hopes to focus U.S. attention on dealing with what he believes is the real threat to Israeli security: Iran. He cites Iran's support of Hamas as reason to avoid relinquishing Israeli control over the West Bank, whose hilltops are well within rocket range of Israel's main cities. Israeli officials are hinting that if President Obama doesn't demonstrate rapid progress in his diplomatic efforts to shut down Tehran's nuclear program, he should step aside and let Israel's air force do the job.
But even as the Israelis focus on the perceived threat from Iran, time is rapidly running out for a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians. Frustrations are running high among Palestinians who have watched two decades of negotiation with the Israelis bring them no closer to statehood. A latticework of Israeli security zones and settlements makes nonsense of the territorial integrity of the West Bank, while a ring of Israeli-controlled space is forming around East Jerusalem, without control of which no Palestinian or Arab leader will be able to accept any peace agreement. Not surprising, then, Palestinian moderates such as Abbas are on the wane; militants are on the rise; and the whispers already talk of a new uprising.
-- With reporting by Aaron J. Klein / Kedumim and Jamil Hamad / Bethlehem
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1946898,00.html
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