Israel set to agree settlement building freeze

ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will probably win narrow approval from his coalition government for a US proposal to extend a freeze on West Bank settlement building, Israeli political sources said yesterday.

Netanyahu briefed his cabinet about US incentives for a fresh 90-day construction ban, as a Peace Now report showed settlers have been building at a furious pace.

An Israeli political source said the security cabinet vote was expected later this week and that seven ministers – Netanyahu among them – were likely to back the US proposal, against six who would vote against and two who would abstain.

As ministers heard details of the far-ranging package of US proposals in exchange for a one-off moratorium, the Palestinians said they had not received any official word of Washington’s offer to Israel.

In private, Palestinian officials have expressed anger over US incentives to get Israel to prolong the partial moratorium on Jewish settlement building, saying it effectively constituted bribing Israel to fulfil basic international obligations.

The package involves a 90-day freeze, which would not cover construction in east Jerusalem but would

include all building begun since September 26 when the previous 10-month moratorium expired, a source close to the negotiations said. It also includes a broad package of security offers, as well as a commitment to block any effort to force a political settlement on Israel.

At the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu confirmed that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had presented him with the details when they met in New York on Thursday, but stressed that the package had not yet been finalised.

Shortly before the cabinet meeting, settlement watchdog Peace Now published a report showing that in the seven weeks since the end of the moratorium, Jewish settlers have started building 1,649 new homes – more than making up for the 10-month ban.

“It turns out that the settlement freeze was no more than a 10-month delay in the construction and the settlers managed to fill in the gap very fast,” Peace Now said.

“The government of Israel must renew the freeze in a way that will stop all settlement activity, including the projects that started in the last few weeks, until there is a final agreement between the Palestinians and Israel regarding the borders and the future of the settlements.”

The US offer is the latest in a series of steps aimed at persuading Israel to impose a new freeze in a bid to salvage moribund peace talks with the Palestinians.

The talks, which began two months ago, shuddered to a halt over renewed settlement building following the end of the ban, with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas refusing to return to the table unless Israel committed itself to a new one.

Netanyahu has so far rejected any new restrictions.