Bethlehem - Ma‘an - Israeli minister of defense Amir Peretz has reportedly retracted his decision to build 100 housing units in the northern Jordan Valley as part of a new settlement, Maskiot.
The decision to construct a new settlement in the occupied West Bank last month met with angry reactions both in Israel, particularly in his own Labor party, and abroad. Israeli sources say that this international and local pressure forced Peretz to rethink his decision.
According to the Israeli daily ‘Haaretz‘, this new housing, which was going to be used for families from the evacuated Gaza settlement bloc of Gush Katif, would have made Maskiot the first new settlement in more than a decade.
All Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory are illegal under international law and Western powers, including the USA, oppose them. Following the decision to create this new settlement, a US state department spokesman warned, ‘The US calls on Israel to meet its Road Map obligations and avoid taking steps that could be viewed as predetermining the outcome of future negotiations,‘ he said.
The head of regional settlements in the Jordan Valle, Dubi Tal, commented on the decision, saying, ‘It seems that internal elections in the Labor party are more important than the settlements in the valley‘. He threatened that he might take the issue to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who had earlier approved the decision.
A member of the Israeli Knesset, Israel Katz, said that he presented a suggestion to the Knesset that the Knesset announce that the valley is under Israeli sovereignty. He added that his suggestion came in response to Peretz‘ hesitation and due to his belief that the Jordan Valley represents the eastern security zone of Israel.
Dror Etkes, coordinator of the Israeli leftist peace movement Peace Now‘s settlement monitoring division, told Haaretz that Peretz‘s reversal shows that the government is incapable of formulating a long-term policy on the settlement issues.
‘Peretz‘s zigzagging in the Maskiot case reflects the confusion on the political level, which reacts to pressure - one time from the settlers and one time from the world - but does not formulate an organized policy on the matter,‘ he is quoted as saying in Haaretz.