U.S. not opposed to Israel pumping more funds into settlements
Netanyahu seeks approval for new map of 'national priority' zones, to grant benefits to another 110,000 settlers.
By Barak Ravid and Mazal Mualem Tags: Israel settlements Israel newsPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to seek cabinet approval for a new map of "national priority" zones does not contradict Israel's declaration of a 10-month construction freeze in West Bank settlements, the prime minister's bureau assured senior United States administration officials late Thursday.
The new map would enable another 110,000 settlers - most of whom live outside the major settlement blocs - the economic benefits conferred on residents of zones already included on Israel's list.
Senior U.S. administration officials told Haaretz earlier Thursday that the prime minister's bureau had provided satisfactory explanations as long as the benefits plan was in keeping with the freeze and that money would not be transferred for new housing in the settlements.
All Labor Party ministers are expected to vote against the proposed revision of the country's national priority zones at Sunday's cabinet meeting. The ministers are objecting to the fact that the new map confers national priority status on several isolated settlements. Designation as a national priority zone entitles a town to various economic benefits.
Several Labor ministers said that even party chairman and defense minister Ehud Barak would not be able to vote for the map in its current form.
At a meeting of Labor ministers on Thursday, the inclusion of the isolated settlements - outside the major settlement blocs - was harshly criticized. The ministers said they were particularly furious that when Eyal Gabai, the director general of the Prime Minister's Office, presented the map to Labor's Knesset faction on Monday, he did not mention any of the isolated settlements it included.
Gabai, they said, merely told them that the sole criterion for determining which West Bank settlements to include was security. As a result, no questions were asked.
The ministers added that they had been pleased by the map's heavy focus on communities in the Negev and Galilee, as well as the fact that Arab towns were well represented. The only problem, they said, is the settlements.
Thursday's meeting ended with a decision to make an all-out effort to get the map changed before Sunday's vote.
"It's wrong to include settlements in the heart of the West Bank in the priority zone map," explained Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog at a conference of southern mayors Thursday. "Such a move contradicts the desire to divide the land under a future peace agreement. But in everything related to advancing the Negev and the Galilee, the map has clear advantages [over the one currently in force]."
Some Labor MKs, such as Ophir Pines-Paz, urged the ministers Thursday to make the settlements' removal from the map a non-negotiable condition of Labor's continued presence in the government.
Pines-Paz added that he found it "hard to believe" that Barak "was not a partner in drafting the map."
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No israel, No Palestine. One State Solution is the best for all. One Man, One Vote, Equality for all inhabitants. Equal Pay for Equal Work, Equal Water Rights. No Apartheid, No Segregation...A Very True Secular Democracy. Let us call it :?State of Holy Land?.
by your 'reasoning' all reasonable land everywhere is 'financed' for 'settlers.' Try again, no brass ring. Your 'logic' escapes me. Why do you care about them? Seems your heart is w/ the terrorists. Study American history as well as ancient history, Israel has every right to exist in peace. So, do we. No Texan would post what you do, newer transplant? middle eastern roots, and heredity?
.... by Israel into settlements (110,000 settlers) outside of the main blocks. The US would NEVER accept such funding! Unless Obama is completely out of the picture.
First they pump it up, then they burst it. Don't get over extended...
Same old, same old. The tail is still wagging the dog ! Obama - the White House dog is wagging his tail more vigorously than your administration ! David
every pretext is used to build here and develop there on the West Bank. Occupied West Bank... Once I was proud of Israel. Now I cannot. Krzysztof, Poland
Apparently some "senior U.S. administration officials" are following a very different agenda from what Obama has proposed.
I dunno which is worse. A president (Bush) who actually thinks Israel is right and so supports it, or a president (Obama) who realizes how wrong it is but turns out to be too weak to do anything but continue to support it.
Subsidizing setters is paying them to live there by way of cheaper cost of living. This is to stop some setters from returning to live in Israel proper and to keep foreign Jews coming even if they have to delay afew months.
Who? Who are they? What are their names? Shame on Haaretz. This is tabloid thrash material. Nothing more than sensational news to elicit attention. Haaretz has become irrelevant in news reporting. Zero credibility. Haaretz has also become a tool to the Israeli Administration. Shame.
This is an Israeli issue. Don't make it sound like the US is endorsing anything. An unnamed American source is not worth calling a source.
Without question, Obama is a one-term president. Only he doesn't know it yet, so impressed he is with himself. In fact, he'll be the last to know. Until then, though, it's everything the Jews want the Jews get because of all that Jewish money, the fuel of the American political process.
I'm not skeptical that a "senior US administration official" could be found who approved of such things, but wouldn't it mean a whole lot more if the official didn't withhold his name? I think this administration's policy, coming from the top, is to promote at every turn a two state solution, including a viable and contiguous Palestinian state, based on the well known pre-June 1967 borders amended by mutually agreeable land swaps allowing Israel to retain western settlements and Palestinians perhaps to obtain an access corridor between Gaza and the West Bank. The fact that some anonymous AIPAC lackey spoke his piece in defense of remote settlement funding and security status designations is meaningless.
At least now Obama can rest easy...41% of Israelis like him now
because he is killing you and him since he in fact always rebel against himself. he might as well be winning at a time but he always fell in endless losing. so simple. winning is in reality losing if you didnt know by now. so the more you are winning in unequal society, the more you are losing in reality. just think about it. those who lose make winner happy so they get more from God, and those who win make others sad so they get less from God. as far on the top, that big is the drop. death is not the end my dear fake jewish friends. they all cry like pussies after death. and the best part it is that they are watching us trying to tell us to turn from evil but we do not hear them nor see them. we arent born bad as some of your scientific agents are trying to claim, it is satanic system of empire of oppression that makes us bad. and so on and so on. may God bless you, if he only could.
US was never an honest peace broker...Bring on the EU.
they follow what i have told you in previous post.
israel cannot be a jewish state and will never be a jewish state. you cannot be a jew if living in israel without being an enemy of israel. i mean, this is a first and default attribute of a jew. the second is that he has to be good, and the third that he has to work for god. this is a jew. every thing else is not important.
no one would oppose real jewish settlements if there were any, real jewish settlements are not the problem. israel is the problem. so did you give my peace plan to criminal peres? what did he say? did he agree with israel being deleted to ground zero and just become one mental hospital?