American objections to Israel's West Bank settlements seem to be falling on deaf ears, Khaled Amayreh reports The Israeli government has decided to defy American objections to the building of thousands of settler housing units in the heart of the West Bank, calculating that the Bush administration will not dare pressure Israel in the midst of a crucial election year. Last week, a senior American diplomat, Eliot Abrams, reportedly sought to convince Israeli leaders to honour "assurances" Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reportedly gave President Bush earlier this year. Sharon promised that Israel would refrain from building new settlements in the West Bank, from expanding existing settlements and that it would ensure that all "illegal settlement outposts" created since 2001 were removed within a reasonable time period Sharon also promised that Israel would remove the bulk of the punitive roadblocks and checkpoints outside Palestinian population centres, whose main function is to torment and humiliate ordinary Palestinian travelers. Unsurprisingly, Sharon's promises and assurances have proven to be nothing but hot air. Roadblocks and checkpoints remain in place, with Israeli soldiers continuing to beat, torment and humiliate innocent Palestinian civilians, including women, college students and especially day labourers struggling to make a living. More importantly, during the past three years the Israeli Ministry of Housing, under the messianic settler-minister, Eifi Eitam, licensed the construction of thousands of settler units throughout the West Bank for the purpose of "creating facts on the ground" and killing, once and for all, the prospect of establishing a viable Palestinian state. Last week, the ministry, now headed by a pro-settler Likud hawk, Tsibi Livni, following Eitam's resignation from the government, issued tenders for the construction of thousands of additional settler units in the Abu Dis and Hizma regions east and northeast of Jerusalem. This massive expansion is to be carried out under the rubric of meeting housing needs resulting from "natural growth". It is abundantly clear, however, that the real goal behind the new expansion of Ma'ali Adomim, located between Jerusalem and Jericho, is to throttle and thoroughly isolate Arab population centres and neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, such as Izariya, Abu Dis, Hizma and Ras Al-Amud. In other words, the new "neighbourhoods" would hermetically cut off East Jerusalem and its surrounding towns and villages from the rest of the West Bank. Moreover, the planned settlements would cut off the southern West Bank (the Hebron and Bethlehem regions) from the central West Bank (the Ramallah region), effectively killing any viable future Palestinian state. Israeli leaders, including Sharon, have sought, apparently successfully, to cajole Abrams to not "capitalise on this issue too much at this time", citing current political crises in Israel. As Abrams -- one of the staunchest Zionist members of the Bush Administration -- left, Israeli officials, including Sharon and Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz, made it clear that plans to expand Ma'ali Adomim remained unchanged and that the 28,000-strong settlement would never be dismantled. Other officials, worried about worsening relations with the US, suggested that construction be put off until "a more favourable time". Palestinian officials, frustrated by the failure of the international community to prevent Israel from stealing Palestinian land, called Israeli plans to build more settlements a "scandalous and brazen breach of the 'roadmap'", the American-backed blueprint for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Palestinian Authority (PA) Minister Saeb Erekat called on the US and the EU to "rein Israeli insolence". "The Americans should realise that Israel is killing the two-state solution," he said. "Maybe soon there will be nothing to talk about except the one-state solution," Erekat added, alluding to the proposed creation of a unified democratic state in all of Mandatory Palestine (from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea) where Jews and Arabs would live as equal citizens. This seems as far-fetched and unthinkable to Israel as ever. This week, Israeli police adopted new draconian measures against Palestinian drivers seeking to bypass nefarious Israeli roadblocks. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on 9 August that Palestinian motorists violating Israeli curfews and military blockades, even for humanitarian reasons, would have their vehicles confiscated. This blatantly illegal measure is apparently aimed at further tormenting a people that have been languishing under a Nazi-like nightmare for the past four years. The decision by the Israeli army coincided with the publication of a report by the Israeli human rights organisation, B'tselem, declaring that Israeli army behaviour in the West Bank is "very similar to apartheid South Africa". "The right of West Bank residents to use certain roads emanates from ethnicity," said the report. It added that the "transportation policies are a direct result of specific instructions provided by soldiers in the field." When B'tselem researcher Najib Abu Roqaya, who compiled the report, asked an Israeli soldier why Palestinians were forbidden to drive on a certain road, he was told that the road was a "sterile highway". "I do not understand how Jewish soldiers do not think twice before uttering such words," said Abu Roqaya, as quoted by Haaretz on 9 August. This notwithstanding, Israel's manifestly racist policies in the West Bank are only a small part of an array of overtly criminal behaviour toward a defenceless Palestinian community. This week, the Israeli occupation army killed more than 15 Palestinians, including a 12-year-old child in the Khan Younis refugee camp in southern Gaza. Eyewitnesses said the child was killed while playing soccer outside his family home by an Israeli sniper stationed atop a watchtower. An Israeli army spokesperson refused even to answer questions on the killing. According to the latest casualty figures, the Israeli occupation army killed 61 Palestinians in July: 34 in the Gaza Strip and 27 in the West Bank. At least 18 were teenage boys. During the same period, 465 other Palestinians were injured or maimed in Israeli artillery bombardment or the strafing of towns and villages by gunfire. Furthermore, the Israeli army utterly annihilated dozens of ancient Palestinian buildings dating back to the Mamluk era (700 years ago) in the vicinity of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. The Israeli army said the wanton demolitions were done for "security reasons". The underlying reason, however, is to create a "safe demographic Jewish continuity" between the mosque, now partially converted into a synagogue for extremist Jewish settlers, and the Kiryat Arba settlement.
