The U.S. State Department has indicated that a proposed “temporary building freeze” for Jews in Judea and Samaria is aimed at bringing the Palestinian Authority back to the negotiating table with Israel.
Israel has floated the idea of a temporary freeze although the Obama administration has not given any indications that it will budge from its demand for a halt to all construction for Jews in the areas that the PA demands as part of its proposed state.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated Thursday that she sides with the United States and told the Bundestag, the lower house in the German parliament, "I think it is now important to get commitments from all sides, and that includes the issue of settlement building. I am convinced that there must be a stop to this. Otherwise we will not come to the two-state solution that is urgently needed."
Merkel urged Israel to end Jewish settlement building in Judea and Samaria, saying it endangered efforts to achieve a two-state solution.
State Department spokesman Ian Kelly, questioned for the second time in a week on Israeli-American negotiations instead of direct talks between Israel and the PA, told reporters this week, "We want to get to a point where we have the kind of conditions where they can sit down and start talking."
Asked if a three or six-month freeze on building would provide the opportunity for talks to resume, Kelley responded, ‘I’m not going to negotiate from here, and I’m definitely not going to answer a question that begins with 'If'.”
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, en route to Israel on Wednesday, commented on Voice of Israel government radio that he told U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell the issue of construction is more symbolic than substantial and is out of proportion to the significance of re-building the PA economy and beefing up law and order in Arab areas.
“We cannot stop building kindergartens,” the Defense Minister said, pointing out that a plurality of the Jewish residents in Judea and Samaria live in the cities of Maaleh Adumim and Betar Illit.
Asked if his proposal of a “temporary” freeze only on expanding communities or building new ones would be satisfactory to the U.S., he answered, “The Americans are serious and responsible.”
American political analysts have noted that the Obama administration faces a problem with budging from its opposition to any building at all because the Arab world would consider any compromise a ”sellout” to Israel.