Ma'an - The Israeli peace movement, Gush Shalom, has on Thursday slammed the government's endorsement of an additional 1,000 residential apartments in the Har Homa (previously 'Abu Ghneim') settlement, located south of Jerusalem in the region of Bethlehem. Gush Shalom has accused this move as provocative and contradictory to Israeli Prime Minister Olmert's promises.
In a statement that Ma'an received, Gush Shalom said 'Prime Minister Olmert and Defense Minister Peretz both excel in throwing out colorful balls called 'humanitarian gestures' and 'political plans', which sound nice but have little relation to reality'.
The peace movement referred to the fact that the establishment of 1,000 residential units in Har Homa is aimed at 'cutting the Palestinian inhabitants of Tzur Baher [Sur Baher, a Palestinian neighbourhood of southeast Jerusalem] off from their neighbors in Bethlehem [in the occupied West Bank]'.
The press release adds that the planners of this extension of the Har Homa settlement, named Har Homa C, intend to erect 'housing to be erected on a long and narrow, knife-like ridge'.
This act, said the peace group, 'is a knife directed at the heart of any chance to achieve peace and reconciliation between the two peoples of this land'.