- MAALEH ADUMIM, West Bank
(AP) -- Israeli trucks and bulldozers moved ahead Thursday with construction
of a West Bank road on a hilly rock-strewn area where Israeli officials
say they will build thousands of new housing units.
-
- The project, intended to link the sprawling Jewish settlement
of Maaleh Adumim to Jerusalem six kilometres away, defies an internationally
supported peace plan demanding a halt in Israeli settlement activity.
-
- The project must go through a lengthy series of approvals
by several government ministries before the first bricks can be laid.
-
- The United States publicly condemned a smaller plan to
expand Maaleh Adumim earlier this week, but Israeli officials said they
will seek U.S. approval for this and other similar expansion projects.
-
- Meanwhile, Israeli troops left the Gaza Strip town of
Beit Hanoun where they have been conducting an operation for six weeks
to clear areas used as launching pads for rocket attacks against Israeli
towns and settlements. One military official said, however, that the troops
will redeploy around the town.
-
- The road construction at Maaleh Adumim is concentrated
on the hardscrabble hills that lie in the western extremity of the Judean
desert.
-
- As trucks and bulldozers worked under a searing summer
sun, local Palestinians walked in the direction of A Tor and Issiwiya,
two Arab neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
-
- U.S. Mideast envoy Elliot Abrams will discuss the Maaleh
Adumim plans during a meeting in Jerusalem later Thursday with Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon.
-
- The State Department in Washington said this week the
United States opposes all settlement construction.
-
- Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said Palestinian
Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia discussed the Maaleh Adumim scheme at a meeting
Thursday with Abrams. The construction plan amounts to a ìland grabî
meant to deny the Palestinians a state, Mr. Erekat said.
-
- Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the powerful Foreign Affairs
and Defence Committee of the parliament, said the expansion plan fits U.S.
President George W. Bush's acknowledgment that large settlement blocs will
remain in Israeli control under a final peace deal.
-
- "Contiguity between Maaleh Adumim and Jerusalem
is necessary due to the realities. Maaleh Adumim is in the consensus,"
he said on Israel Radio.
-
- Inside a busy mall in the centre of Maale Adumim, local
residents expressed strong support for the construction of the new housing
units.
-
- "I think it's great," said U.S. native Yitzhak
Klein, 47, who moved to Maale Adumim in 1988. "It shows that Jewish
settlement in Israel is expanding."
-
- In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli redeployment around Beit
Hanoun came after more than six weeks of a military presence in the town.
-
- Israel raided Beit Hanoun last month after rockets killed
two people in the Israeli town of Sderot. The deaths were the first by
rocket fire since Israeli-Palestinian fighting erupted nearly four years
ago.
-
- Even though hundreds of hectares of Palestinian land
were cleared and several houses demolished, the army operation in Beit
Hanoun failed to stop the rocket barrage on Sderot. Several Palestinians
were killed in clashes with the Israelis during the six-week mission.
-
- Mr. Sharon says he is determined to stamp out the rocket
fire, which could torpedo his plan to evacuate the Gaza Strip and four
West Bank settlements by late 2005. Hard-liners who oppose the pullout
plan say a withdrawal will put more Israeli towns within rocket range.
-
- As part of the withdrawal plan, Mr. Sharon sought and
received U.S. backing for Israel's plan to hold onto large West Bank settlement
blocs ñ such as Maaleh Adumim, home to 31,000 Israelis ñ
under a final peace deal.
-
- The United States has, however, repeatedly called on
Israel to abide by a settlement freeze outlined in the "road map"
peace plan.
-
- "This will kill the road map and this will kill
any attempts to have final status negotiations one day," Mr. Erekat
said.
-
- This week, the State Department denounced a report that
Israel planned to build 600 housing units in Maaleh Adumim, calling it
a violation of the road map. Israel said the plan was old, predating the
road map, and that many of the housing units already have been built.
-
- Yet three months ago, Mr. Sharon and Defence Minister
Shaul Mofaz declared 15 square kilometres of land between Maaleh Adumim
and Jerusalem to be state land, the first step toward using the land for
housing construction, said one government official insisting on anonymity.
-
- In addition, the Housing Ministry began infrastructure
work on the land, preparing to lay down sewage, electricity and phone lines.
The final building plans must be approved by the Defence Ministry.
-
- According to the Israeli newspaper Maariv, Mr. Sharon
and Mr. Mofaz have made it a top priority to begin construction of the
new neighbourhood.
-
- The plan was originally approved by the late prime minister
Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995, said Maaleh Adumim's mayor,
Benny Kashriel.
-
- "Within about six months, the planning work in the
Housing Ministry will be complete and then we will be able to present the
construction plans for the city to the Defense Minister for approval,"
Mr. Kashriel told Maariv.
-
- Israel has long been concerned about the demographics
of Jerusalem, which it claims as its capital.
-
- Some Jews have been leaving the city, and the Arab growth
rate is significantly higher than the Jewish birth rate. Demographers forecast
that in a few decades Jews will be in the minority.
-
- © Copyright 2004 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc.
All Rights Reserved. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGA
M.20040805.wisra0805/BNStory/International/
|
