Israel yesterday shrugged off a blunt US call for a halt to all Jewish settlement building on occupied Palestinian land, the latest sign Washington is hardening its tone towards its close ally.
“Normal life” will be allowed in settlements in the occupied West Bank, government spokesman Mark Regev said, using a euphemism for continuing construction to accommodate population growth.
The fate of settlements “will be determined in final status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and in the interim, normal life must be allowed to continue in those communities,” he said.
His comments marked an effective rebuff to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s declaration that US President Barack Obama wants a stop to all settlement activity as he pushes for the revival of stalled peace talks.
“He wants to see a stop to settlements. Not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions,” Clinton said.
Another senior Israeli official also played down the comments, saying Clinton “did nothing but again express the differences that appeared during the May 18 meeting in Washington between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”
It was the clearest example yet of the rift emerging between the administration of Obama, who has vowed to vigorously pursue the peace process as part of a changed approach to the region, and Netanyahu, presiding over a hardline government largely opposed to many concessions.
Clinton’s call came ahead of Obama’s White House meeting yesterday with Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, who has ruled out restarting peace talks with Israel unless it removes all roadblocks and freezes settlement activity.
Netanyahu has said his Cabinet would not build any new settlements, but vowed to continue building in existing blocs despite US demands to stop.
“I have no intention to construct new settlements, but it makes no sense to ask us not to answer to the needs of natural growth and to stop all construction,” he told the Cabinet on Sunday.
More than 280,000 settlers currently live in settlements dotted throughout the Palestinian territory that Israel captured during the 1967 Six Day War. The international community considers the settlements illegal.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International, in its annual report released yesterday — The State of the World’s Human Rights — accused Israel of “repeatedly” violating the laws of war during its December offensive in the Gaza Strip that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians.
“Israeli forces repeatedly breached the laws of war, including by carrying out direct attacks on civilians and civilian buildings and attacks targeting Palestinian militants that caused a disproportionate toll among civilians,” the report said.
Some 300 children were among the dead and around 5,000 people were wounded in Israel’s three-week bombardment of the coastal enclave, the report said.
The Israeli organization NGO Monitor criticized the report, saying Amnesty had ignored violations by the Palestinian Hamas movement that controls the Gaza Strip.
It also accused the international rights watchdog of failing to provide context in highlighting four cases of Palestinians who lost their lives after being denied entry into Israel for treatment.
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