The plans for new construction infuriated Palestinians, and together with the attack, drove prospects for renewed peacemaking even further out of reach. A Netanyahu aide said the Israeli government informed the US — which has been toiling with little success to break the negotiations deadlock — of the decision.
“We’re deeply concerned by continuing Israeli actions on settlements in the West Bank,” the statement from the US Embassy said. “As we said before, we view these settlements as illegitimate and as running counter to efforts to resume direct negotiations.” Just last month, the United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement construction. The US said it agreed with the wider world about the illegitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity but thought Israelis and Palestinians should resolve key conflicts between them and the council wasn’t the proper venue for the dispute. The council’s 14 other members voted in favor of the resolution.
A senior Israeli official responded to the US criticism by reasserting Israel’s expectation that the major settlement blocs, where most of the 300,000 West Bank settlers live, will remain in Israeli hands under any final peace accord.
An additional 200,000 settlers live in east Jerusalem, captured along with the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want both territories, along with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, for their future state.
They say all settlements are illegitimate.
Disputes over settlement construction have driven peacemaking into a virtual standstill for the past two years. Palestinians refuse to negotiate until Israel halts all building on occupied territories. Israel says negotiations should not be held hostage to conditions and note that previous rounds of talks took place while construction proceeded.
