News tenders issued after several months of quiet freeze due to Netanyahu's fear of American backlash.

By Chaim Levinson,Nir Hasson Barak Ravid and Haaretz

Israel published tenders for 450 new settlement units on Friday, including a new neighborhood known as East Migron.

The move ends an extended period when there was a quiet freeze on new construction over the Green Line.

The tenders include 102 units in the Hebron suburb of Kiryat Arba, 78 single-family homes in Alfei Menashe and 156 units in Elkana. The plans also call for 114 units in East Migron, a new neighborhood born out of an agreement by which settlers would evacuate an outpost built on private Palestinian land and move to a new residential area east of the settlement of Adam. Residents violated the deal, and in the end were given an area closer to Migron.

Besides the settlement tenders issued Friday, the Jerusalem Building and Planning Committee submitted a plan to establish 93 housing units in the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, also located over the Green Line. The plan was previously approved but held up for several years because of ownership issues.

In response to the tenders, PLO Executive Committee member Saeb Erekat called for a ban all settlement products and divestment "from companies and institutions linked directly or indirectly with the Israeli occupation and apartheid policies."

Israel had not issued any tenders for months because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu feared a harsh American response. Last week, tenders were issued for commercial and tourist-oriented facilities in Emanuel and Maale Adumim.

Michael Oren, the former Israeli ambassador to the United States, said on Friday that he opposed the tenders. He said in light of events this week, a more Zionist answer would be to build in the Golan Heights and in northern Israel, not in Kiryat Arba.

Oren, a candidate on Moshe Kahlon's Kulanu list, noted that the latest tenders for building in the territories are not constructive for Israel's relations with the United States and do not enhance Israel's ability to defend itself and amass international support.

Zahava Gal-On, chairwoman of the left-wing Meretz party, blasted the timing of the announcement.

"Continued building in the settlements is taking advantage of the election season and is sabotaging any chance of a diplomatic settlement," she said Friday. "The extremist Bibi-Bennett government knows that the American government and the European Union view settlement building as contrary to international law, yet it continues to create facts on the ground in contrast to Israel's existential interest."

"The tenders are an example of pre-election underhanded opportunism by the housing minister and the prime minister, who are trying every minute to create facts on the ground and prevent a diplomatic solution," commented Yariv Oppenheimer, director of Peace Now.

“It’s the opening of the settlement floodgates,” said Daniel Seidemann, head of the Terrestrial Jerusalem group, according to AFP. Seidemann added the announcements were the first of their kind since October, and that he expected more before the March 17 general election.

The Housing and Construction Ministry responded to Peace Now's attack. "The marketing in Judea and Samaria is a relaunch of the marketing of tenders that were issued last year and failed," the ministry said in a statement on Friday. "Failed tenders are automatically reissued by officials in the Israel Lands Authority."

Source: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.639879

Netanyahu tells supporters at a settlement campaign event that Israel will continue to build in the West Bank, as his Likud party competes with more hawkish parties for settler votes. Erekat calls for boycott, divestment in response.

Less than a month and a half before general elections, the Israeli government published tenders for 430 new settlement homes in the occupied West Bank on Friday.

The move could be interpreted as a gift of sorts to the right-wing electorate as the ruling Likud party fights for votes with the further-right Jewish Home party headed by Naftali Bennett. While Netanyahu has ruled out a withdrawal from the West Bank, which would necessarily preclude Palestinian statehood. Other prominent members of the Likud and the entire Jewish Home party outright oppose a two-state solution.

The settlement construction tenders are issued via the Housing and Construction Ministry, headed by Minister Uri Ariel of Jewish Home.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue settlement construction this week, speaking to young Likud supporters in the West Bank settlement of Ariel.

“We will not hesitate to stand up and say: we are here, we are staying here, we will build here and cultivate here,” Netanyahu said. “Ariel is a part of the State of Israel, that’s the way it was and that’s how it will be.”

The prime minister also ruled out handing over the central West Bank hill country to the Palestinians, warning of a “second Hamasastan.” Netanyahu put his refusal to withdraw from the West Bank in even clearer terms in July. “There cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan,” he said.

The plans include new construction in the settlements of Adam, Elkana, Alfei Menace and Kiryat Arba, according to AFP.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin is scheduled to attend a dedication ceremony Monday for a new community center in the settlement of Kiryat Arba, which abuts the Palestinian city of Hebron and the Jewish settlement inside the city. Rivlin is a Likud veteran but has put great effort to stay above party politics since assuming the presidency.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called the latest settlement announcement “unsurprising when viewed in the context of the culture of impunity granted to Israel by the international community.”

Erekat called on the international community to hold Israel accountable, saying the world should “ban all settlement products and divest from companies and institutions linked directly or indirectly with the Israeli occupation and apartheid policies.”

Related:
Israeli government votes to support annexing West Bank settlements
The occupation will last forever, Netanyahu clarifies
Palestinian minister dies after reportedly struck by Israeli troops

Source : http://972mag.com/the-israeli-governments-election-gift-to-west-bank-settlers/102057/