The Contentious Settlement Construction Issue 

Netanyahu's December 10 month moratorium was bogus and deceptive. Construction perhaps slowed but never stopped, a topic an earlier article addressed, accessed through the following link: 

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/08/israels-bogus-construction-moratorium.html 

In August, the Israeli Peace Now group launched an anti-settlement campaign, explaining moratorium violations. It concluded by saying "there is almost no freeze or even a visible slowdown, despite the fact that legal construction starts have been prohibited for eight months. It also means that....Israel is not enforcing the moratorium." 

In September, Peace Now updated its information headlining, "13,000 housing units can be built without further government approval," saying: 

-- 2,066 are ready for immediate construction - where "ground works have already begun or the construction permit has already been approved;" 

-- hundreds more are also ready to go, but ground work construction hasn't begun; 

-- at least another 11,000 housing units have been approved according to valid building plans, "and the settlers can build them even without further government approval;" 

-- it means that "if the government (imposes) a de facto 'tacit freeze,' (settlers) can still build 13,000 housing units, 5,000 of which are in isolated settlements east of the" Separation Wall; and 

-- 25,000 more units were previously approved but need updating to proceed. 

What's clear is that freeze or no freeze, massive settlement construction will continue.  

On September 16, Haaretz writer Avi Issacharoff headlined, "Report: US suggests 3-month extension to settlement freeze," saying: 

"Abbas has agreed....but Netanyahu has yet to respond." His office then issued a statement saying: 

"we don't comment on the content of the negotiations. The position of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (is) well known, and hasn't changed." 

During Sharm el-Sheikh meetings, he told Abbas that construction would resume at the end of September - that is, at a faster pace than now. If finessing the issue, in fact, happens, Peace Now says: 

"The reality is that under such a compromise, construction....can still re-start on a massive scale." Besides the 2,066 ready to go, 60 settlements have gotten Civil Administration land allocations though the World Zionist Organization's Settlement Division or another settlement agency. 

Taking all of the above into account, total potential settlement construction is about "38,000 housing units (in) plans that were approved" but never built. Most require further approval, but it's little more than rubber-stamping them whenever Israeli authorities wish. Neither Washington nor Abbas will stop them. Nor will world leaders object.  

The "peace process" charade goes on, Palestine's legitimate government excluded. Palestinians are instead represented by a coup d'etat regime, headed by an Israeli collaborationist serving them, not his people. Imagine what's likely ahead. 

On September 1, five disreputable leaders began discussions in Washington - Obama, Netanyahu, Abbas, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, and Jordan's King Abdullah, men journalist Matthew Cassel calls "a dictator, a (dictatorial) monarch, a puppet and two heads of government responsible for the region's only military occupations - not the best ingredients for making world peace." 

They're superb ones, in fact, for waging war against it, the agenda America and Israel pursue, intolerant of peace and dedicated to avoiding it at all costs.