Israel Matzav: Jewish housing starts in Judea and Samaria go 'poof' UPDATED

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Jewish housing starts in Judea and Samaria go 'poof' UPDATED

Haaretz is reporting that most of the 1,800 housing starts in Judea and Samaria that were announced last week have gone 'poof.'

Following pressure by Western European diplomats, the Civil Administration decided on Wednesday to delay the recently announced plans to move forward on construction of 1,800 settlement homes.

The only plans approved by the Civil Administration's High Planning Council concerned 381 housing units in Givat Ze'ev. Those involving construction in Ariel, Har Bracha, Alfei Menashe, Oranit and other settlements were put off, along with plans in the settlement outpost Al-Matan.

Planning council chairman Daniel Halimi said he received instructions for the delays shortly before the meeting, and a source who attended the session said, "Apparently the decision came from high up."

On Tuesday, British Ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould and French Ambassador to Israel Patrick Maisonnave told National Security Adviser Yossi Cohen that their countries wanted Israel to hold off on advancing plans for the 1,800 settlement homes, which had been frozen for many months.

Gould and Maisonnave told Cohen that Germany, Italy and Spain would be conveying the same message, which the Italian and Spanish ambassadors did to the Foreign Ministry later that day, while German Ambassador Andreas Michaelis weighed in with Cohen early on Wednesday.

Israeli officials admit the delay but deny that it was the result of European pressure.

"Most of the deliberations set for today's original agenda were discussed, except for a plan that was removed at the request of the council and an additional plan that was postponed because of a publishing process that was not implemented as asked," said the officials.

Envision a pretzel soaked in warm water overnight floating around in a cup. Envision Prime Minister Netanyahu's backbone. Pretty similar, aren't they?

UPDATE 1:31 PM

I just found the retweet below in Barak Ravid's (the author of the report above) Twitter feed. Translation follows:

גורמי תכנון מודים: יש הנחייה לא להעלות שום תוכנית מחוץ לגושים לדיון בוועדת התכנון של המנהל. גורמים פוליטים אומרים זה בגלל ווטו של לפיד
— ilil shahar (@ilils1) June 12, 2014

Translation: Planning sources admit that there is an overall instruction not to bring up any plan for consideration in the [Israel Land] Authority's Planning Committee that includes houses outside the 'settlement blocs.' Political sources say that this is due to [Yair] Lapid's veto.

Thank you Naftali Bennett for giving Lapid so much power by refusing to go into the government without him a year an a half ago.

Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Britain, European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Judea and Samaria construction, Matthew Gould, Naftali Bennett, Spain, Yair Lapid