Israel approves new West Bank settlement construction day after U.N. vote

An Israeli flag flies in the wind as a Jewish settler walks past the remaining foundations of a demolished house, in the unauthorized West Bank settlement of Migron, on January 31, 2012. / AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/Getty Images

JERUSALEM Israel approved the construction of 3,000 homes in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, a government official said Friday, in what appeared to be a defiant response to the Palestinians' successful United Nations recognition bid.

The Palestinians strongly condemned the announcement and repeated their refusal to start peace negotiations while building continued. With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apparently poised for re-election and insisting that any negotiations begin without preconditions, prospects for peace appear to be going into deep freeze.

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Palestinians celebrate statehood recognition

The unusually large building plan came a day after the United Nations voted overwhelmingly to accept "Palestine" in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem as a non-member observer state, setting off jubilant celebrations among Palestinians.

Israel fiercely objected to the U.N. upgrade, saying peace could only come from direct negotiations and unilateral moves would harm that prospect. The Palestinians said the U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state in the territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war was an attempt to salvage a possible peace deal and could bolster talks.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has refused to negotiate with Israeli while settlement construction continues in occupied territories, saying Israel's settlement expansion on war-won land was making a partition deal increasingly difficult.

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Prior to word of the Israeli decision, Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeneh insisted that position hadn't changed, saying settlement building "is not just illegal, it's against the resolution."

More than 500,000 Israelis have moved to the West Bank and east Jerusalem since Israel capturing those territories and Gaza in 1967. Israel unilaterally withdrew its soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005.

Netanyahu says negotiations must begin without preconditions.

The Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the sensitive issue publicly, said Israel also decided to begin preliminary work in other areas of the West Bank, including the charged E-1 corridor that connects Jerusalem with the settlement bloc of Maaleh Adumim.

Construction there would place a major obstacle for Palestinian statehood by cutting off east Jerusalem from the West Bank and plans there had previously blocked by the Bush administration for that reason.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat condemned the Israeli announcement, saying Israel was "defying the whole international community and insisting on destroying the two-state solution."

He said the Palestinian leadership was studying its options.

Danny Seidemann, a lawyer for Ir Amim, an Israeli group that supports coexistence in Jerusalem, said construction did not appear imminent and there was "quite a lot of drama" in the Israeli announcement.

"There an element of sticking it to the Palestinians," he said, before adding that plans in E-1 were not only a blow to the Palestinians but to the Americans who oppose them too. "E-1 is the judgment day weapons."

Yesh Din, an Israeli rights group, called the Israeli decision "collective punishment" and called on Israel to retract its move.

"Israel should have understood by now that such behavior ... will no longer be tolerated by the international community," said Yesh Din's Executive Director Haim Erlich.

Earlier this month, Israel said it was pushing forward construction of 1,200 new homes in Jewish settlements, in an apparent warning to the Palestinians to rethink their U.N. plan. Israel fears the Palestinians will use their upgraded status to confront Israel in international bodies and extort it to make concessions.

In recent days, though, Israel had appeared to step back from its initial threats of harsh retaliation.

Former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the onetime chief negotiator with the Palestinians, also slammed the decision.

"The decision at the U.N. on a Palestinian state is bad for Israel and so is Netanyahu's response," said Livni, who this week launched a new opposition party. "The decision to build thousands of housing units as punishment to the Palestinians only punishes Israel ... the unnecessary statement only isolates Israel further."

The results of the U.N. vote were a foregone conclusion, given the sympathies of nearly all member states. Only nine states opposed the bid, including Israel and the United States, while 138 supported it. Unlike the more powerful U.N. Security Council, there are no vetoes in the General Assembly, and the resolution to raise the Palestinian status only required a majority vote for approval.

The vote granted Abbas an overwhelming international endorsement for his key position: establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. Netanyahu opposes a full pullback to the 1967 lines.

The Palestinians turned to the U.N. after two decades of on-again, off-again talks.

Netanyahu dismissed the U.N. vote as meaningless and accused Abbas of delivering a "defamatory and venomous" U.N. speech "full of mendacious propaganda" against Israel.

[verifabletruthmatters]

Israel has had more than 60 years to prove itself. It's the same religious war the Rabbis started in 1850 to steal back Palestine ignorantly believing Palestine to be the Promised Land. They willingly reduce a Consciousness aligned with 100 BIL galaxies headed to Infinity, to a moron who cares about real estate in the Mideast, on a speck of dust called Earth. There are 1400 planets in the "habitable zone" of their star like our Sun, and 33 of them are the same size as Earth. In other words, there's nothing special about Earth, except that the human species is doing a great job failing the real Program. "Take basic Understandings, Kindergarten material like the TEN COMMANDMENTS, and raise them to the level of the Universal LAWS that govern God's World", to reach an Awareness Level known as THE PROMISED LAND". The message for centuries has been to stop violating the LAWS, because Physics doesn't tolerate being violated. It's the cause of every accident and virtually every tragedy on the planet. EVERYTHING has to be translated to a function of Energy governed by Physics. Teachers who know what they're doing don't leave behind TEACHINGS that are a violation of the Universal LAWS that govern God's World. Fundamentalists are HUGE VIOLATORS of verifiable TRUTH, therefore HUGE VIOLATORS of the associated Universal LAWS that govern the Universe, therefore HUGE VIOLATORS of God's World.

Which is exactly where we find 6 million genocidal Jews in a nation of hypocrites called Israel, pushing a pack of bogus and violating religious ignorance, easily disproved. They ignorantly believe they can force the SECOND COMING by stealing back a piece of real estate, when they've spent centuries butchering the TEN COMMANDMENTS. They ignorantly believe they are "A CHOSEN PEOPLE" when Physics is running the show & it doesn't play favorites. A Consciousness aligned with 100 BILLION galaxies going to Infinity isn't going to violate the Physics running the show. The Consciousness that was Jesus, left the area around Jerusalem and spent 17 years studying under THE MASTERS in Tibet, where he left behind TEACHINGS on Reincarnation that have been stripped from the 100 versions of a very adulterated, highly politicized book, called the Bible. The current texts read nothing like the original documents, which in the case of the New Testament are 300 years old. Until humans are willing to translate the most original documents of any Sacred Text to a function of Energy governed by Physics, they're not going to have a clue what the TEACHER was trying to say. Jesus spent the last 300 years traveling among the Indians of North and South America leaving behind the same TEACHINGS as he did in the Mideast. If... there was going to be such a thing as "A CHOSEN PEOPLE" the title would go to the Indians, then to the people of Tibet, NOT the Jewish People.

Pro-Israeli, Jewish, Judge Goldstone chose 3 dozen war crimes out of 3600 atrocities committed by Israel in Jan 2009, which were released in the Goldstone Report, because he has a long history of investigating war crimes in Rwanda, Cosovo, Africa, etc.(Bill Moyers Journal 10-23-09) We have Separation of Church & State in the US because religions have a long history of destroying, causing most wars, and being incessant about pushing their violating ignorance. Which is all that Israel is--scheming, manipulating, lies, deceit, betrayal, theft and genocide--wasting BILLIONS in US taxpayer money. 17 million people were harmed by "white-supremacist, racists" in Nazi Germany. It was an atrocity for 17 million people, not just 6 million Jews. The Jews were already engaged in their "religious Supremacy ignorance" in 1850, decades before Germany ever happened and Germany knew what England and the Zionists were up to. Israel is backed by 50 million Evangelical Fundamentalists in the US pushing a completely different pack of violating, religious ignorance around the SECOND COMING, The End of Days, their highly violating interpretations of the Book of Revelations, and being taken into heaven in THE RAPTURE. That's why Israel gets away with murder, theft, scheming, manipulation, and incessant lies to push violating ignorance and obnoxious abuse. There could be peace in the Mideast. The US & England are responsible for creating the atrocity and abomination that is Israel. Cut off all aid, force them to the table for one discussion: how to move them out. Give them the ability to immigrate to US and England. (The Israeli Lobby by John Mearsheimer, "The Mideast: A Century of Conflict" by NPR, Morning Edition, Sept 2007 a 7 part series w 13 good references, The Palestinians by Jonathan Dimbleby, The Accidental Empire by Gorshum Goremberg, Pity The Nation: Israeli Atrocities in Lebanon, Against The Tide by Lincoln Chaffee, Bill Moyers Journal 11-30-07 w John Hagee head of Christians United For Israel (CUFI), NPR, Fresh Air, 11-24-09 &12-6-09; 11-29-11; 8-24 & 10-3-2011 on New Apostolic Reformation)

[varbd]

Israel may criticise Abbas' speech as much as it likes. All the impartial observer needs to do is to look at Israel's actions over the last decade. It speaks volumes: the whole world can see if Israel looks even obscurely like a peacemaker

[superdem1]

Who could ever have imagined that taking land in the Middle East and giving it to the Jews of Europe was a good idea ? It was a terrible idea, as we are seeing almost 70 years later. And stealing ever more land just makes the original mistake even worse. Americans should have supported the UN resolution, and Americans should demand immediate formal negotiations to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a two-state solution. The US should demand Israel to show up. There is no secret to what the answer is, long drawn out negotiations are not required. Nothing has changed in 60 years, any child can see what needs to be done. Israel stalls hoping the status quo will become permanent, that is their entire strategy. The world says NO.

[sweetcakesmaria]

Israel has always sought to play the role of the perpetual victim while they continue to occupy the land and victimize the Palenstinian people. By continuing to built settlements on this disputed land, Israel proves to the world that it's a land grabbing nation that has no intentions of settling their dispute with the Palenstinians.