Guest Thinkers — March 14, 2011

Israel Quickens Settlement Construction

Israel said that it would build hundreds of new housing units within the populous West Bank settlement blocs, ending a slowdown in government-supported construction that had lasted several months.

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Israel’s West Bank settlements, which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton once denounced as “illegitimate”, will continue being built at a new a rapid pace: “The announcement, which came from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said the government’s Ministerial Committee on Settlements had decided to approve construction in Gush Etzion, Maale Adumim, Ariel and Modiin Ilit—areas of the West Bank that Israel intends to keep under any permanent accord with the Palestinians. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, condemned the decision, calling it ‘wrong, unacceptable and objectionable.'”

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