Defense Minister Ehud Barak has approved the construction of 455 housing units in settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria. No further building is expected to be approved for Jews in these areas until further notice, as demanded by U.S. President Barack Obama.
Over a third of the units will be built in two Gush Etzion communities, over 100 will be constructed in and around Maaleh Adumim, and 76 more will be built in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Pisgat Ze’ev. Only 45 units will be built in small communities.
The approved units will be allotted as follows:
Har Gilo (Gush Etzion) – 149
Alon Shvut (Gush Etzion) - 12
Maaleh Adumim – 89
Keidar, near Maaleh Adumim – 25
Modiin Illit (Kiryat Sefer) – 84
a hareidi-religious neighborhood in Pisgat Ze’ev (Jerusalem) - 76
Maskiyot (Jordan Valley) – 20
In addition, Barak has issued permits for a sports park that has already been built in Ariel, and a new school in Har Adar, just north of Jerusalem.
Last Meal
Settlement leaders in Judea and Samaria are disgusted by the paltry numbers and especially by the freeze that the approvals are meant to introduce. “This is like the last meal that is given to a prisoner who is about to be executed," said MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union).
“The construction freeze is a death sentence for the settlement enterprise,” Eldad said, “and all the members of the government are signed on it. The new units approved by the Defense Minister are merely a fig leaf that is unable to hide the government’s shame and the Likud’s betrayal of Jewish settlement. Netanyahu and Barak apparently know that the silence of the lambs in the government will continue, and that the ideology of the Land of Israel loyalists is weaker than that which connects them with their government chairs.”
The Chairman of the National Union party, MK Yaakov Katz (Ketzaleh), has called on all mayors in Judea and Samaria to hold a sit-in protest against the freeze. The protest is to be held outside the Prime Minister's Office, until the construction freeze is thawed.
Pinchas Wallerstein, Director-General of the Yesha Council of Communities in Judea and Samaria, said, “In actuality, the Defense Minister has not approved even one new house or contract, nor has he issued even one new tender. These certainly do not atone for the construction freeze.”