Sending the 'Palestinians' a message
With Israel facing demonstrations against high housing prices in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the government on Monday announced the issuance of tenders for the construction of 6,900 housing units in 38 cities and towns around the country, including 300 units in Judea and Samaria, mostly in Beitar Ilit and Karnei Shomron. The reaction was predictable. Nabil Abu Rudaineh, a spokesman for PA President Mahmoud Abbas, said that the continued construction in the settlements “prompts us to go to the UN and the Security Council to ask for recognition of a Palestinian state and full membership in the UN.”There's a message here and underneath all the bluster, I'm not sure the 'Palestinians' got it, so I will explain it to you. The message is not in Beitar Ilit. Beitar Ilit is considered part of the Etzion bloc and is one of the 'settlement blocs' that Israel has said for the last seven years that it plans to keep as part of any 'final settlement.' The message is in the units in Karnei Shomron.
Abu Rudaineh said that the decision to build new homes in the settlements in particular and the Israeli government’s policy regarding settlements in general was completely unacceptable “because all the settlements are illegitimate and must be removed.”
He urged the international community to assume responsibility by taking a clear position against the settlement policy, which, he added, harms not only Israeli-Arab peace, but also the entire world peace.
Meanwhile, a US State Department official on Monday also strongly criticized the announcement of the new West Bank housing tenders.
“We believe this kind of activity only reinforces the stalemate between the parties," the official said, noting America's longstanding opposition to settlement expansion. "It negates the very logic of peace and obstructs the ability of the parties to reach a negotiated solution based on two states for two peoples.”
Fatah also issued a strong condemnation of the plan to build new homes, accusing the Israeli government of destroying the peace process.
The Israeli decision to build in the settlements confirms the Palestinian Authority’s position about the need to go to go to the UN in September, Fatah said.
“Israel alone bears responsibility for the current impasse in the peace process because of its insistence on creating facts on the ground through settlements, land confiscation and the Judaization of Jerusalem,” the statement added.
It also warned that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s policies would plunge the region into another cycle of violence and bloodshed.
Karnei Shomron is outside the 'security fence.'
The message to the 'Palestinians' is that they are not the only ones with unilateral moves, and if they continue to press their luck at the United Nations, they could find themselves with nothing. That message is long overdue. Actions have consequences.
Labels: Beitar Ilit, Judea and Samaria construction, Karnei Shomron, security fence
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:49 AM
2 Comments:
"Judaization of Jerusalem" indeed. "die Judaisierung ist das Problem..."
Meanwhile: "obstructs the ability of the parties to reach a negotiated solution based on two states for two peoples"--good luck with that.
The Palestinians use Nazi language to object to Jewish rights.
No one in Israel is swayed by their hatred of the Jews. And it was inevitable Israel's government was forced to lift the revanant construction freeze.
There is very little land to go around in pre 1967 Israel and families need a place to live. And if the government hadn't authorized it, people would have began building illegally and this time around, there would have been widespread sympathy for it.
People living where they want to hurts no one. If the Palestinians don't like it, that's their problem.
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