‘Israel’ to Reject US Demand to Freeze Isolated Settlements Building
Local Editor
The Trump administration reportedly demanded that ‘Israel' halt all construction in isolated West Bank illegal settlements and put curbs on new building inside the major settlement blocs, under the terms of an agreement currently being negotiated with the Netanyahu government over settlement construction.
During his visit to the region last week, US President Donald Trump's Special Envoy for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt held a pair of lengthy discussions with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in part to reach an understanding on new settlement construction.
According to several Hebrew media reports Wednesday, Greenblatt set out terms under which the US would not oppose the construction of new settler units in Jewish neighborhoods over the pre-1967 lines in East occupied al-Quds/‘Jerusalem', and would accept an agreed number of new settler units each year inside the major settlement blocs, while no new settler units would be built in isolated settlements.
Building in the blocs would be within an agreed annual quota, Greenblatt proposed, according to Channel 2.
‘Israel' "was surprised" by the stringency of the demands, and rejected them, the report said.
Netanyahu rejected the terms, Haaretz reported, in part due to opposition from coalition members to a public declaration of any type of settlement freeze.
Right-wing members of his Likud party, as well as from the pro-settlement ‘Jewish Home' party, were adamantly opposed to any freeze, Haaretz added.
Netanyahu also reportedly rejected Greenblatt's proposal because it would prevent him from honoring his promise to build a new settlement for the evacuees of the now destroyed illegal Amona outpost, according to Channel 2.
Channel 2 further reported that Netanyahu wants to be able to build within settlements' "city limits" - which could potentially triple the size of the settlement enterprise.
As a consequence of the failure to reach an understanding with Greenblatt during his visit, Netanyahu dispatched his chief of staff, Yoav Horowitz, to Washington on Sunday in order to continue discussions on the subject with the Trump envoy alongside the Zionist Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer.
Since Trump's inauguration, the Zionist entity approved the construction of some 6,000 news settler units in the West Bank and East al-Quds, which unlike during the Obama administration were met with little fanfare from the White House, although no new building plans have been announced since Trump's comments in February.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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