350 units planned in West Bank
Israelis creating new facts on ground, PNA says
Ramallah: The Israeli Ministry of Construction and Housing Monday issued a tender for construction of 350 new colony homes in the West Bank.
According to the Israeli Radio, the new homes will be built in the Israeli colonies of Beitar Illit near Bethlehem and Karnei Shomron near Nablus.
The 350 homes will be part of a tender to construct 6,900 homes around Israel.
Gassan Doghlous, official at the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) responsible for checking colony activities in the northern parts of the West Bank, told Gulf News that the Israelis are aiming to create new facts on the ground by kicking out the original Palestinian residents of the West Bank from their homes and properties.
Militant colonists
"The average Israeli citizen does not live in West Bank colonies, but only the ultra-orthodox and religious Israeli citizens to whom the Israeli government has issued a green light to act the way they desire in the West Bank," he said.
"The Israeli government has granted the Israeli colonists in the West Bank the world's best possible way of life and living standards, but they desire more and more of the Palestinian lands to be expropriated and annexed to their new building in the West Bank," he said.
The announcement of the Israeli tender has angered the PNA which considers the move yet another ploy to bury the peace process.
A senior PNA official told Gulf News that the Israeli Ministry of Construction and Housing cannot issue this tender without the official approval of the Israeli Ministry of Defence where Ehud Barak had to approve it personally.
The official stressed that the current Israeli government is controlled by the colonists who have never halted or frozen construction in the West Bank. He said the PNA condemned the Israeli ministries in the strongest terms, branding the announcement as yet another nail in the coffin of the peace process. "Such announcements do not leave any room for the peace process," he said.
The official explained that the ongoing talk about the big colony blocks in the West Bank is not a justification for the new announcement, stressing that even those colony blocks are constructed on the private properties of the Palestinians.
The official said the Israeli announcement is another form of punishment for the PNA for waging a diplomatic war against the Israelis ahead of the September vote in the United Nations on Palestinian statehood.
Colony construction has stymied peacemaking efforts for more than two years. Talks resumed briefly in September but broke down again after an Israeli moratorium on new construction expired.
