Despite violent protests among settlers and a lot of hand-wringing, the Israeli military today finally complied with a court order to remove two settler buildings illegally built on privately-owned Palestinian land near the settlement of Beit El, near Ramallah.
Desperate to placate the far-right, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu followed this up by announcing he is approving 300 new settlement units in the same area, and over 500 others elsewhere across the occupied West Bank.
The State Department issued a statement saying they were “deeply concerned” about the settlement expansion, saying they believe the new construction threatens the peace process and “calls into question Israel’s commitment to a negotiated resolution to the conflict.
Netanyahu’s far-right coalition is the narrowest majority possible, 61 in a 120-seat parliament, and he needs to keep every one of them to try to pass any legislation. He was facing threats from some of the more pro-settler members to vote against him on everything if he went through on the demolitions the court demanded, and seems to be trying to split the difference with the new construction announcements.
"The State Department issued a statement saying they were “deeply concerned” about the settlement expansion, saying they believe the new construction threatens the peace process and “calls into question Israel’s commitment to a negotiated resolution to the conflict."
State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner and the rest of the State Dept should be more than "deeply concerned" – they should have called Netanyahoo and told him to forget about the military freebies and financial guarantees – as well as getting the traitor Pollard back.
Second, there is no "peace process" currently underway and the State Dept should already know that.
Last, Israel’s commitment to a negotiated resolution is non-existent and to be sure, never really existed.
November 18, 2012 Israel and the U.S. CREATED Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda
Creating the Enemies We Now Fight Against We’ve extensively documented that the U.S. and Israel created Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in an attempt to fight other enemies.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/11/israel-and…
creating 300 nice new homes for the Pals????