In what a Jordan Valley official said is a “rare coincidence,” an announcement was made on Sunday to expand a tiny Jordan Valley community at virtually the same time the Prime Minister was to meet with American leaders.
Last year, the expansion plans were announced by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, angering then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who arrived the same day for talks.
Now, nearly 11 months later, the Jordan Valley Regional Council published a tender for the construction of the approved 20 new housing units the same day that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu landed in Washington for crucial talks with U.S. President Barack Obama. Senior officials, including Vice President Joe Biden, have specifically demanded that Israel stop all building for Jews in Judea and Samaria.
The homes are for Maskiot, a former army outpost that now houses eight families who were expelled from the Shirat HaYam community in Gush Katif nearly four years ago. Yossi Hazut, administrator of Maskiot and one of the families expelled from Shirat HaYam, told Israel National News that there is enough demand to fill the houses within a year.
Shirat HaYam families have been bounced around to and from at least four communities in search of a permanent home since the abandonment of Gush Katif, Hazut added.
He added that seven families do not want to wait for the promised new houses and are anxious to move to the community this summer if small temporary pre-fabricated homes can be moved into the area. All such homes that move across the checkpoints along the separation-security barrier must be authorized by Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
Last July, he announced the approval of the construction of the homes a year after Amir Peretz, his predecessor as minister and as Labor party chairman, reversed his own decision and froze building plans. Peretz was acting in accordance with demands from then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who arrived in Israel the same time that building plans were announced.
Both coincidences provided ammunition then and now for dovish Jewish parties and Palestinian Authority officials to attack the Israeli governments for acting in bad faith. Peace Now leader Yariv Oppenheimer, who failed in his bid to win a Knesset seat in the Labor party in the recent election, charge that the coincidence of the tender and the Prime Minister’s visit is "an indication of the government's plan to expand isolated settlements.
Kadima party MK Yochanan Plesner said that the “foolish” decision "would deteriorate Israel's relations with the U.S.”
Jordan Valley officials have maintained that Maskiot is not a new town because it has been an army post since 1982, with a pre-army military academy now operating there. The Defense Ministry’s planning and construction committee explained at the time that the approval was a bureaucratic decision for the “expansion of an existing settlement.”
The remote area even came under the eye of the United Nations last year, when Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated he was “deeply concerned” over expansion plans.