Israel reneges on settlement pledge - as it always does

From The Guardian.

An Israeli ministerial committee has approved construction of new homes in a West Bank settlement despite a pledge to the US to stop building on the site, Israeli media reported today.

The committee has given the green light for 20 new homes at Maskiot. Ehud Barak, the defence minister, is expected to authorise construction soon, said Israel Radio. The plans were dropped by Israel in 2006 after pressure from the US.

It is bound to anger the Palestinians and irritate the US, which has called on Israel to halt construction in the settlements as part of the American "road map" for peace in the Middle East.

The 2003 peace plan also called on Palestinians to clamp down on militants who attack Israel.

The Bush administration previously criticised Israeli plans to settle 30 families at Maskiot, a former Israel defence force base, as a breach of Israeli obligations.

Israel has defended the latest move on the grounds that the settlement is not new. The government says it was legally established in 1982, housed an army unit and a school, and has had civilians living there for several years.

Approval has also been granted for construction in areas of East Jerusalem surrounded by large Arab populations but Israel said they are not settlements.

In his visit to Israel this week, Gordon Brown called on the government to freeze building of settlements in the occupied West Bank and withdraw from them.

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, warned last month that Jewish settlement building was having a "negative effect" on efforts to reach a peace deal. She was referring to Israeli plans to build 1,300 new homes in Ramat Shlomo, an area of the West Bank that Israel considers part of Jerusalem.

The Palestinians have called the settlement plans a systematic policy to destroy the peace process, but Israel has described the new homes as the natural growth of existing communities.

About 260,000 settlers live among 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank. The international court of justice has ruled that Israeli settlements on land captured in the 1967 war are illegal.

Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, yesterday told reporters during a visit to Israel that he would begin working straight away for peace in the Middle East if elected in November.