Housing Ministry working on plans for 55,548 settlement homes — Peace Now Projects worth $85m in the works, mostly initiated by Jewish Home’s Uri Ariel, according to data collated by anti-settlement group
The Housing Ministry is working on settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem valued at more than NIS 330 million ($85 million), the Peace Now organization said Monday, basing its claim on ministry documents it obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
The vast majority of contracts were signed between March 2013 and May 2015, when Uri Ariel of the pro-settlement Jewish Home party was housing minister. He currently serves as minister of agriculture and rural development.
Peace Now, which campaigns for a negotiated two-state agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, obtained 200 pages of ministry documentation, with tables containing more than 1,000 lines of data, following a legal petition.
The organization claimed in a report Monday that this data and other sources reveal the ministry to be working on plans for 55,548 units in West Bank settlements, half of which are located east of the West Bank security barrier.
Uri Ariel touring a construction site in the settlement of Kochav Yaakov in August 2013. (photo credit: Flash90)
The international community regards as illegal all settlements in lands conquered by Israel during the 1967 Six Day war and has backed Palestinian claims that continued construction in these areas presents a major stumbling block to an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
The documents also confirm “post-facto legalization/approval of at least six illegal outposts,” plans to create new settlements south of Bethlehem and in the northern Jordan Valley (the latter on the site of an illegal outpost established in 2013), projects to expand smaller settlements into bigger towns, and plans for 8,372 units in the E1 area slated to more closely connect Ma’ale Adumim to Jerusalem and make it harder for any future Palestinian state to establish territorial contiguity, Peace Now said.
Maj. Gen. (ret. ) and Kulanu candidate Yoav Galant speaking with Ynet reporters in an interview on January 9, 2015. (screen capture: Ynet News)
Housing Minister and Kulanu MK Yoav Galant. (screen capture: Ynet News)
Israel’s Housing Minister Yoav Galant on Monday denied any plans to build in E1.
The Peace Now report detailed what it said are efforts to create a buffer ring around Jerusalem, which will seal Palestinian East Jerusalem off from Ramallah in the north — the seat of the Palestinian Authority — and Bethlehem in the south.
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It said the ministry has spent more than NIS 2 million ($515,000) on plans for a massive 10,000-unit housing project in Atarot (in northern Jerusalem, between Beit Hanina and Ramallah). If implemented, this would be the first new neighborhood in East Jerusalem since the controversial establishment of Har Homa by Netanyahu in 1997 and would cut Palestinian East Jerusalem off from Ramallah.
A further 2,000 units are planned to connect Har Homa westwards to a neighborhood being planned on the nearby hilltop of Givat Hamatos, cutting Bethlehem off from the city’s southern Palestinian neighborhoods of Beit Zafafa and Sharafat, Peace Now said.
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An additional 21 units are being planned for the heart of the Old City’s Muslim Quarter, near Herod’s Gate, the report claimed.
Bear Klein Said:
NormanF Said:
HMMM how did BB do it, announce E1, take credit, then build nothing and obstruct the construction?
thats one smart feller that BB
remember how BB announced and took credit for it only to subsequently abandon it and hardly a fool in Israel raises a whimper. BB knows his constituency have alzeheimers so he hardly bothers anymore to hide his MO anymore as they will just forget and move on to the next concocted distraction. His MO has become as transparent as the emperors clothes, but few see how easy it is done.
here is the big joke:
LOL, Labor approved and BB killed it.
The gap between his rhetoric and actions is enormous but many keep coming up with excuses for his consistent MO to delude themselves. BB doesnt bother with stating those excuses which might commit him to lies…instead he merely has anonymous folks “leak” the excuses or write op eds. Now we will have folks telling us that the plans are supported by BB clandestinely and are ongoing under the table. BB gets the best of all worlds.
So true, except for the highlighted segment. Netanyahu shows no urgency in making sure that Arabs don’t kill “too many Jews”. A moral prime minister would consider one murdered Jew to be excessive.
What is the foremost of Israel’s concerns? For years, we were told that it was stopping Iran from nuclearizing, but that rhetoric seems to have subsided. Isn’t Israel’s de facto foremost concern actually the retention of the political status quo, ie., making sure that Netanyahu and his benefactors remain in control? What else is he accomplishing?
Peace Now is hyperventilating for nothing.
Netanyahu will ensure none of them are ever built.
Israel has its priorities – torturing innocent Jews over Duma and making sure Arabs don’t kill too many Jews to upset the Golden Calf of the peace industry.
In case, its escaped Peace Now’s notice, settlements today are the least of Israel’s concerns.
If Netanyahu is sincere about accepting a two state solution, what is the govt or two state solution advocates response to the complaint that the Pali state would be carved into non-contiguous areas making it untenable or ridiculous?
Peace Now is enemy and must be treated as such.
Assuming that past is prologue, Obama will now throw a bucket of water and Netanyahu will dissolve like the Wicked Witch of the West. Casting aside that bitter reality, expansion is a wonderful idea and hopefully it happens.
The unannounced plans for expansion of Mallah Adumin into E1 without about 8 thousand housing units is the correct way to do this. In other words just create a reality and let the EU and the Obama to bitch about it later fait accompli.