 Israel intends to build a new settlement in the West Bank that could take in settlers uprooted from Gaza, officials said on Tuesday, drawing swift protest from Palestinians who fear losing land for a state they seek. Gvaot, planned as an extension to the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, appeared to fall within the cracks of a US-led "roadkill map" peace plan whose final vision is hotly disputed as Israel and the Palestinians try to stabilise a tentative ceasefire. The roadkill map requires a halt to settlement-building on land Israel captured in 1967 and where Palestinians want statehood. But President George W. Bush said in 2004 that Israel could expect to keep some of the West Bank land under an accord.
| It's a lousy idea. Even if they end up keeping the land after an eventual settlement, they should wait until then to bring in settlers. |
Disclosing the Gvaot project, Housing Minister Isaac Herzog said Jewish settlers slated for evacuation from Gaza this year would be encouraged to relocate to sparsely populated areas of Israel, but could also go to the West Bank if they chose. "I cannot prevent an individual who wants to use his compensation to buy a house in Gush Etzion from doing so," he told Reuters. "This would be totally within his rights." Gush Etzion, about 20 km (12 miles) south of Jerusalem, has about 15,000 settlers alone and is among several sprawling enclaves Sharon regards as strategic assets not to be ceded. Palestinian officials, engaged in security coordination talks with Israel since President Mahmoud Abbas and Sharon declared a ceasefire at a summit in Egypt last week, cried foul over the new settlement plan. "Israel is throwing sand in our eyes by continuing with the settlement process (in the West Bank)," Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei told Reuters before a cabinet meeting.
| Sounds like you'd better hurry up and settle then. |
Palestinians fear West Bank settlement expansion could dash their hope for a viable state envisioned by the roadkill map. A US official suggested the plan would not be helpful for fresh efforts to revive the road map stimulated by Abbas's Jan. 9 election to succeed Yasser Arafat on a platform of ending four years of bloodshed to negotiate for statehood on occupied land. "We are concerned about any building of new or additional settlements in the West Bank, basically because the roadkill map calls for a cessation of settlement activity, and we will be looking into this," he told Reuters. "To extent that the barrier is built inside the West Bank itself, it is a problem."
Sharon has faced strong opposition from right-wing Israelis to abandoning territory they regard as a biblical birthright -- including within his government -- although polls show most of the Jewish state's citizens favour a pullout from tiny Gaza. Senior political sources said that Sharon hoped to win a key cabinet vote on the Gaza plan this Sunday by tabling another resolution on extending Israel's controversial West Bank barrier to encompass Gush Etzion. "The prime minister long put off discussing this (Gush Etzion) section of the fence, concerned it would draw international censure," an Israeli political source said. "Now he hopes to mollify the cabinet rebels, by letting them vote for the fence section with the knowledge that he expects them also to approve the Gaza plan." |
