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29 April comes and goes

You may not recall, but 29 April was the then projected end-date for the conclusion of the so-called Peace Talks between the Israelis and Palestinians.      The informed view was that the talks would fail - as they have!     Of course, for the Israelis it has been convenient to protract the talks.    If one ever wanted evidence of how Israel has moved things along "on the ground" in the West Bank contrary to international law - even during the talks - proof comes to light today.

"Israel approved the construction of nearly 14,000 homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem during nine months of peace talks, the dovish Peace Now NGO said in a report released Tuesday, the day marking the formal expiration of the crisis-stricken Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

In a report published Tuesday morning, the left-wing watchdog Peace Now claimed that during the nine months of US Secretary of State John Kerry’s orchestrated negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli government approved tenders and plans for at least 13,851 housing units in the settlements and East Jerusalem.

“This is an unprecedented number representing an average of 50 housing units per day or 1,540 per month,” the group said.

Tuesday is the last day of the nine-month period allotted for negotiations that were supposed to propel the two sides towards peace. Instead, the last month has witnessed a collapse in talks.

Jerusalem did not commit to freezing settlement construction during the negotiations when talks were announced nine months ago in July, though it had been a key Palestinian demand.

The Peace Now report also indicated that 73 percent of the plans were for the construction of housing units in “isolated” settlements, far from the Green Line, and that the number of tenders granted in the last year was four times greater than in the past.

Peace Now head Yariv Oppenheimer said the numbers showed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was moving further from peace efforts.

“The figures don’t lie,” he said, according to the Walla news site. “Courtesy of the peace negotiations, Netanyahu broke all building records in the settlements and damaged even further the chance of creating two states.”

 See also "Mideast talks in tatters as peace deadline expires" from The Daily Star.

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