Netanyahu said he refused them in the past but not this time. The US is determined to force Israel to accept ’67 lines plus swaps and US security proposals. Obviously the US upped the pressure on Netanyahu and won’t accept no for an answer. For the US, the so called peace negotiations are far from over. Ted Belman
Netanyahu told a group of settler leaders that the activity of the planning council of Israel’s Civil Administration, the body responsible for authorizing construction in the West Bank, had been partially suspended because the United States demanded it, the news site nrg.co.il reported Friday.
Netanyahu, who met Thursday night with mayors from 20 West Bank settlements, said the United States recently demanded that the Civil Administration not only refrain from issuing tenders for construction, but also freeze the activity of its planning committee altogether and not approve new projects that would later require tenders.
At the meeting, which took place at the Prime Minister’s Bureau, Netanyahu reportedly told the mayors he was “the defender of settlements,” adding that the he had resisted earlier Obama administration demands that “not a single brick be laid, not a single house be built.”
One of the visiting mayors told Netanyahu that not allowing the planning council to convene meant a de facto freeze on construction because “without its approval, the smallest actions cannot be completed, even not placing a lamp post above the guard post, much less preparing for the coming school year,” nrg reported.
At a briefing with Times of Israel staffers on May 19, Danon said Israeli authorities recently imposed a “silent freeze” on planning for further settlement expansion. While construction work is currently taking place on already approved projects, no new developments are planned and no tenders and bids are being issued, Danon said.
“I don’t know of a formal policy to limit building. But when you look, de facto, what’s happening on the ground, yes, you feel there is a silent freeze in terms of planning and in terms of government construction,” Danon (Likud) said. “And that’s something that bothers me.”
This “freeze” is being enforced everywhere — within and outside the so-called settlement blocs, he said. “If you don’t allow any planning, it will stop. You will have no [housing] units for youngsters in Ariel, in Maaleh Adumim. This is happening already.”
Danon said he wasn’t sure why the government would agree to quietly freeze settlement expansion, suggesting that pressure from the United States might be behind it. “Building in Judea and Samaria is a major issue among the Americans,” he said, using the Biblical names for the West Bank. “A lot of pressure is being put on us.”
Dani Dayan, of the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria, backed Danon’s claim of a “silent” settlement freeze. “For the last three months, the planning committee of the Civil Administration in charge of building has not convened even once,” he told The Times of Israel. “Plans for new buildings were not advanced one inch, let alone approved. There are no new tenders at all,” he said.
Construction is proceeding on pre-approved projects, Dayan said. “There is still some water in the pipeline, but if no new water is added, then clearly the pipeline will dry up soon.”
“As far as we know, this is because of a direct order from the Prime Minister’s Office,” Dayan charged, adding that he assumes that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “intimidated” by “threats” from the White House or the State Department.
The PMO declined to comment on Danon’s statements.
According to unnamed senior US officials, President Barack Obama believes that Israeli announcements of construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem throughout the nine months of the US-brokered Israeli-Palestinian peace talks were more central than any other factor in causing the negotiations’ collapse. Earlier this month in Washington, US special envoy Martin Indyk said settlement activity had “sabotaged negotiations” and now represented “a roadblock to resumption of negotiations.” In a report late last month, the dovish Peace Now NGO said Israel had approved the construction of nearly 14,000 homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem during the nine months of peace talks.
@ yamit82: Polls of Two Days ago.
http://knessetjeremy.com/category/knesset/polls/
@ Bear Klein:
TX say is the Spurs want to beat the Heat they better “pick-up” their game. Hondurans take soccer very seriously, they have gone to war over the out came of soccer games.
@ honeybee:
Yep Spurs I hope will beat Heat. Bye the way Israeli National Soccer Team beat Honduras 4-2 in Houston, yesterday.
@ Bear Klein:
GO SPURS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bear Klein Said:
Don’t know let’s see it play out. If BB leads the Likud the Likud next time around will not lead any coalition. Lieberman will desert him for another party????
Events may also determine the political mix in the next elections and who can say. As Long as BB is well out of it we have a chance.
XLucid Said:
http://www.israelendtimes.com/media-files/narrett-on-israel-national-radio-with-tamar-yonah-august-22-2006.mp3
Audio: Hellenism, Anti-Semitism and the Media
Why does Western culture increasingly butt heads with Judaism?
“Is that not akin to blaming the victim more than the victimizer for not fighting back and somehow allowing themselves to be victimized?”
First of all, Netanyahu is supposed to lead a sovereign country and certainly not a vassal country of the US or Obama.
Secondly, the answer was taught to us by G-d Himself during the crossing of the desert where the Children of Israel started to worship idols.
G-d became angry and He punished the Children of Israel for that grave forfaiture.
If we follow your reasoning, G-d should have become upset against the idols, and certainly not against the Children of Israel. On this topic, the idols are Obama and the international community.
The only thing that matters remains the reaction from the part of Israel, where the rights of the Jewish People are wholeheartedly waived by the Israeli government.
@ yamit82: So if you are correct in your prediction of bye bye Bibi. Who will follow him as Prime Minister in your opinion?
K & I should be persona non Grata in IL.
First we need to know exactly what are the threats from Obama and then to determine how Israel can retaliate to them.
Diplomatically we need to confront Obama about May 1967. There were NO “Occupied territories” at that time.
And yet Egypt and Syria were preparing to ‘throw the Jews into the sea’. And the U.S. pressured Israel to not take military action.
I wish that Israel would publicly point this out and demand a full accounting from Obama and the State Department.
Of course this will not happen because most of our Jewish leaders are stupid and cowardly.
Lets see who would still un jump from the anti-Netanyahu wagon… I hope people is not holding their collective breathing. The specimen lied, misled, betrayed all along on every single one of his declarations. “Pressures” are always asked for by those willing to be pressured.
Trusting that snake is again offering ourselves for disasters to come.
To believe that Netanyahu and most Israeli politicians have Israel’s best interests at heart is to believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy. The only interests they have at heart are their self preservation and shielding themselves from punishment for their crimes. The question is not what punishment Obama has in store for Israel for not obeying him, but what punishment he is threatening Netanyahu with?
Before you all jump on the anti-Netanyahu bandwagon and condemn him outright for instituting a de facto freeze on building beyond the green line, does it not seem reasonable to first find out exactly what pressure Obama applied this time and then judge whether Netanyahu’s capitulation to that pressure was his only rational choice, an understandable judgment call or just plain foolish or cowardly which is deserving of condemnation?
So many who post here while damning Obama for being what many on the right consider the most anti-Israel President in history, seem to reserve even greater condemnation for Netanyahu when he appears to bend to the pressure from Obama.
Is that not akin to blaming the victim more than the victimizer for not fighting back and somehow allowing themselves to be victimized?
@ yamit82: It is not difficult to find fault with PM Netanyahu. Why, may I ask, did we release ALL of the murderers if Bibi was going to cave on construction tenders post negotiations. Personally, I smell a rat and the varmit’s official residence is not in Jerusalem, it is on Pennsyvania Avenue in Washington D.C.
Israel is being threatened by The United States. The American Jewish Community voted for this can of worms, not once, but twice. Where can Bibi seek solace and comfort? From China.I do not think so. Bibi sidelined Livni beautifully, I thought. They are trying to distract Bibi from Iran. It probably will not work, imo.
(- except in the US.)
This is the latest stage in the blame game. Obama, Kerry and Hillbillary need to kill Netanyahu politically to save their own legacy, and at present they seem to win by a good margin, thanks to Israeli support.
Several of those of us here in this Blog, one of the most prominent of them, (Thank you Ted),long ago determined the true nature of don Netanyahu. He was from the word go a leading party to the “freeze” and salami slices destruction of all Jewish national rights, everywhere, from the Negev to the Golan, from the Jordan to the Sea. Since his father passed away, all pretenses were shed by the specimen.
What remains to be seen is how long he will have to advance the destruction plans. That he is fading among most of the Likud chumps, there is no question, yet the whole Israeli demokratiahhh Golem is controlled from overseas and by the 18 families. Yamit is probably correct on the forecast as well.
I predict elections in Israel by the end of the year.
Bye Bye BB????