Israel is to build new homes in West Bank settlement

TEL AVIV, August 8 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – In a new sign of defiance, even to its staunchest ally, the Israeli government has approved Sunday, August 8, the construction of hundreds of new houses in one of the largest and most controversial settlements in the West Bank .

The Israeli move could possibly lead to a collision course with the United States which has already voiced its objection to the move.

Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz has given the go-ahead for the building of new housing units on the western fringes of the Ariel settlement, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP), citing Israeli sources.

"The minister approved an additional tranche of 200 homes six months ago," a senior Israeli government official told AFP.

Mayor of the Ariel settlement Ron Nachman said the construction of the new housing units comes as part of a wider "development plan" to build 2.000 homes that was given the green light six months ago.

Ariel settlement homes around 18,000 residents and lies some 12 miles (20 kilometers) to the east of the internationally-recognized boundary between Israel and the West Bank , the so-called Green Line.

Flagrant Violation

Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said Mofaz's approval of construction in Ariel was a "flagrant violation of the roadmap peace plan and all the promises made by the Israeli government to the Americans," the Reuters news agency reported.

According to the internationally-backed roadmap plan, Israel is obliged to halt all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories where around 245,000 Israeli settlers live.

The Israeli anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now also warned that the new decision would undermine all efforts to reach any future agreement with the Palestinian people.

"The construction of hundreds of new housing blocks east of the Green Line is a death blow to the solution of two states for two people and damages any future attempt to reach a permanent agreement with the Palestinian people," according to AFP.

"We call upon the government to stand by its commitments to the Israeli public and the world at large, to freeze all plans of construction over the Green Line," The movement said in a statement.

The news emerged after Washington had slapped the Israeli government on its plans to build 600 new homes in the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumin.

"The roadmap calls for a freeze on all settlement activity. This seems to me to be in conflict of those obligations," a US diplomatic source was quoted by AFP as saying.

On August 3, Israel defied the US-sponsored roadmap by giving a "new push" to its settlement program by approving the construction of 600 new settlements in the West Bank .

Maale Adumim, which lies close to Al-Quds (occupied East Jerusalem), is the largest of the West Bank settlements with some 28,000 residents, while around 12,000 live in the 15 settlements which make up Gush Etzion in the Bethlehem region of the southern West Bank .