The New York Times reports:
In the three months since Israel ended its settlement construction freeze in the West Bank, causing the Palestinians to withdraw from peace talks, a settlement-building boom has begun, especially in more remote communities that are least likely to be part of Israel after any two-state peace deal.
This means that if negotiations ever get back on track, there will be thousands more Israeli settlers who will have to relocate into Israel, posing new problems over how to accommodate them while creating a Palestinian state on the land where many of them are living now.
In addition to West Bank settlement building, construction for predominantly Jewish housing in East Jerusalem, where the Palestinians hope to make their future capital, has been rapidly growing after a break of half a year, with hundreds of units approved and thousands more planned.
On a tour of West Bank construction sites, Dror Etkes, an anti-settlement advocate who has spent the past nine years chronicling their growth, said he doubted whether there had been such a burst in settlement construction in at least a decade.
Hagit Ofran, a settlement opponent who monitors their growth for Peace Now, said, “We can say firmly that this is the most active period in many years.” She said there were 2,000 housing units being built now and a total of 13,000 in the pipeline that did not require additional permits. In each of the past three years, about 3,000 units have been built.
13,000 homes. Hmmm…. I’d like to know where Israel is getting 13,000 families to fill them. (Are the ultra-orthos really that prolific?). Last I read, alyia is being balanced out by exodus.
delia, It’s madness! Enamored of their own hasbara they think we’re dumb goyim that will swallow it all. But in the pit of their stomachs ulcerated with self-doubt they know that they, not us, are dumb. So where it goes nobody knows. That’s a terrible situation for ALL parties. As in the Bible, hubris causes downfall!
Interesting question of where the people will come from to fill those housing units? If we are to believe that there is a growing population of Israeli’s who disagree with the Netanyahoo Government, they have to be adults. But I wonder about the youth of the defiant ones, who appear to have been brainwashed to use the term, into believing that they are the chosen ones? Very seldom is notice taken about these youth, at least in the western editions, but they do exist. I believe it’s agreeable with comments here, that the present regime has gone mad. Like the present conditions here in the U.S., so it seems to be in Israel too. As to how it will play out, is anybodies guess. Hopefully, the sane ones will win out before the mad men take the country over the cliff of no return.
What’s to stop him? International law? The Security Council? Military force? Lack of funds? Pick any one of the above, and write us a short essay. You might win a gold star.
SOB.