Last update - 00:00 15/11/2007
ANALYSIS: Vow to freeze settlements raises unanswered questions
By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent
It was with much concern that the Yesha Council of Jewish Settlements in Judea and Samaria received the recent media reports that the government is planning to freeze settlement construction as a goodwill gesture in the run up to the international peace confab at Annapolis.
The last time the government ceased nearly all construction in the settlements was during Yitzhak Rabin's term in office from 1992 to 1995, when the cabinet even compensated building contractors for pulling the plug on the settlement operation.
Construction projects are currently under way in 88 settlements across the West Bank, mostly on the Western side of the security barrier Israel has set up between its territory proper and the Palestinian areas. Leading construction sites can be found around Jerusalem, in Ma'aleh Adumim, Beitar Ilit, Givat Ze'ev and Modi'in Ilit. Some 4,000 housing units are presently under construction in those settlements and other Jewish towns in the West Bank, where demand for these housing units is relatively high.
The annual Israel Lands Administration report reveals that 27 percent of all apartments that had been purchased in 2006 were situated in the West Bank. The overall number of West Bank apartment sold was 6,118, out of 22,718 units across the country.
Construction is under way in dozens of outposts across the West Bank as well. Peace Now's settlement-watch team found that the settlers are using their own construction companies to build small housing units, thus circumventing the law prohibiting the transporting of portable housing units on roads. Peace Now estimates the settlers have so far self-produced hundreds of trailer homes.
Wednesday's report in Haaretz that the U.S. and Israel intend to discuss the nature of the proposed freeze in the upcoming days raises a number of unanswered questions about the plan's viability and its chances of succeeding.
For example, will the freeze apply to settlements blocs that are, according to informal understandings with the U.S., to remain within Israel's territory after the permanent agreement with the Palestinians?
Will the government compensate building contractors again? And what about recent buyers, who already paid for frozen construction sites?
Will the freeze include construction projects that have already received all necessary permits and been approved?
Will the freeze take away some of the powers of the planning committees in regional and local councils in the West Bank?
And how will the government address natural population growth in settlements - which comprises two-thirds of the general growth of population - after the freeze is implemented?