Defense Minister Amir Peretz is reconsidering his previous decision to add homes in the small Jewish village after the United States and the European Union have issued calls to halt the project.
Initial development plans include construction of 30 house to be constructed beyond the handful of buildings that already exist. The site was established in 1981 as an IDF base with the specific intention of becoming a town for civilians.
Currently, there are several permanent residents living in a handful of small buildings on the site, as well as 50 religious students who attend a pre-military academy there.
After a long period of homelessness, the displaced residents of the Gush Katif town of Shirat HaYam reached the decision to re-establish their community in the Jordan Valley, in Maskiot. According to the Shirat HaYam website, "This decision was motivated by their strong desire to remain together as a group, to develop as an independent community, to strengthen the bloc of religious communities in the northern Jordan Valley and to create defensible borders for Israel. It was an expression of their commitment to realizing the Zionist dream in a region considered vital to Israel's security."
The U.S. State Department, however, raised strong objections to the project, warning that Israel should “meet its Road Map obligations and avoid taking steps that could be viewed as predetermining the outcome of final-status negotiations.” The European Union expressed its disapproval for the same reasons.
Yoram Ettinger, former liaison for Congressional affairs in Israel's Washington
embassy, told Arutz-7's Hebrew newsmagazine, "It is only the State Department that is objecting, not the President. The State Department has been consistent, since 1967, in wanting Israel to return to the 1949 borders and divide Jerusalem. But its influence is proportionate to the Israeli government's policies. If the Israeli government goes along with the State Department, like the present government does, this merely encourages and strengthens State. But if it gives support to its backers in Washington, this weakens State's influence."
The Jordan Valley is a 60-mile north-south strip extending from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, most of which was liberated from Jordanian rule in the 1967 Six Day War. Due to its great strategic significance as a buffer zone on the Jordanian border, Jewish settlement there has long been in the national consensus, and Israel's leftwing political parties sponsored numerous towns and kibbutzim in the region.
Sources in the Defense Ministry quoted by The Jerusalem Post said Peretz had decided to reconsider the earlier decision to approve the project in response to international objections.
The head of the Jordan Valley Regional Council was quoted in the report as saying “it’s nothing serious,” and that it was unlikely the government approval would be withdrawn. The project, he said, was examined over a 14-month period in which it advanced through six different phases of approval and was finally passed.
The Road Map plan, which was initiated by the Bush administration, calls for Israel to halt construction of new communities in Judea and Samaria. It does not place similar restrictions on construction by the Palestinian Authority. In addition, all restrictions on Israel are conditional upon an end to Palestinian terrorism, according to an Israeli government decision of May 2003.
In an interview with the German news agency DPA last week, Miri Eisen, spokesperson for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, asserted that the plans for Maskiot do not violate the American Road Map plan.
Eisen said that the Road Map calls for Israel to refrain from building new communities in Judea and Samaria, and does not refer to ones that are already in existence or were already approved for construction.
Initial development plans include construction of 30 house to be constructed beyond the handful of buildings that already exist. The site was established in 1981 as an IDF base with the specific intention of becoming a town for civilians.
Currently, there are several permanent residents living in a handful of small buildings on the site, as well as 50 religious students who attend a pre-military academy there.
After a long period of homelessness, the displaced residents of the Gush Katif town of Shirat HaYam reached the decision to re-establish their community in the Jordan Valley, in Maskiot. According to the Shirat HaYam website, "This decision was motivated by their strong desire to remain together as a group, to develop as an independent community, to strengthen the bloc of religious communities in the northern Jordan Valley and to create defensible borders for Israel. It was an expression of their commitment to realizing the Zionist dream in a region considered vital to Israel's security."
The playground in the now-destroyed Gush Katif beachfront village of Shirat HaYam.
The U.S. State Department, however, raised strong objections to the project, warning that Israel should “meet its Road Map obligations and avoid taking steps that could be viewed as predetermining the outcome of final-status negotiations.” The European Union expressed its disapproval for the same reasons.
Yoram Ettinger, former liaison for Congressional affairs in Israel's Washington
embassy, told Arutz-7's Hebrew newsmagazine, "It is only the State Department that is objecting, not the President. The State Department has been consistent, since 1967, in wanting Israel to return to the 1949 borders and divide Jerusalem. But its influence is proportionate to the Israeli government's policies. If the Israeli government goes along with the State Department, like the present government does, this merely encourages and strengthens State. But if it gives support to its backers in Washington, this weakens State's influence."
The Jordan Valley is a 60-mile north-south strip extending from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, most of which was liberated from Jordanian rule in the 1967 Six Day War. Due to its great strategic significance as a buffer zone on the Jordanian border, Jewish settlement there has long been in the national consensus, and Israel's leftwing political parties sponsored numerous towns and kibbutzim in the region.
Sources in the Defense Ministry quoted by The Jerusalem Post said Peretz had decided to reconsider the earlier decision to approve the project in response to international objections.
The head of the Jordan Valley Regional Council was quoted in the report as saying “it’s nothing serious,” and that it was unlikely the government approval would be withdrawn. The project, he said, was examined over a 14-month period in which it advanced through six different phases of approval and was finally passed.
The Road Map plan, which was initiated by the Bush administration, calls for Israel to halt construction of new communities in Judea and Samaria. It does not place similar restrictions on construction by the Palestinian Authority. In addition, all restrictions on Israel are conditional upon an end to Palestinian terrorism, according to an Israeli government decision of May 2003.
In an interview with the German news agency DPA last week, Miri Eisen, spokesperson for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, asserted that the plans for Maskiot do not violate the American Road Map plan.
Eisen said that the Road Map calls for Israel to refrain from building new communities in Judea and Samaria, and does not refer to ones that are already in existence or were already approved for construction.