Blueprint For Tension
West Bank building angers world, but Israel's left takes it in stride.
pour in this time, too. Sharon will
have to tread carefully between his car-
dinal desire to maintain warm rela-
tions with the Bush administration
and his wish to keep Likud hard-liners
and right-wing coalition partners
loyal.
International Criticism
Above: Palestinian boys launch stones against nearby Israeli soldiers
during clashes in the West Bank town of Hebron, on April 5.
Left: An Israeli soldier takes shelter behind a concrete barricade
during clashes in Hebron.
DAVID LANDAU
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jerusalem
T
he Palestinians hope to
regain the diplomatic high
ground following Israel's
announcement that it will
build another 700 housing units in
two West Bank settlements.
Housing Minister Natan Sharansky's
insistence that the construction was
approved under former Prime Minister
Ehud Barak did little to mute the
international condemnation, including
the U.S. State Department's character-
ization of the move as provocative.
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has
his work cut out this week to explain
the decision to build in Alfei Menashe
and Ma'aleh Adumim.
On a midweek visit to Turkey, Peres
insisted that the new construction falls
within government policy guidelines,
which rule out building new settle-
ments but hold out the prospect of
expanding existing settlements to
account for communities' "natural
growth."
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
reportedly took much the same line in
4/13
2001
24
a telephone conversation with U.S.
Secretary of State Colin Powell over
the weekend. Sharon advised
Washington to discount rhetoric from
right-wing junior cabinet ministers
that may seem to contradict what he
calls a policy of relative restraint in set-
tlement building.
Sharon was at pains to stress that he,
not anyone else, sets policy — and
that Peres is privy to it.
Sharansky stressed Tuesday that the
building was planned for settlements
"in the heart of the consensus" — in
other words, within the settlement
blocs to be annexed by Israel under
proposals discussed at last summer's
Camp David summit.
The Palestinians eventually rejected
those proposals, although the land
issue appeared to be less of an obstacle
than other issues.
Negotiation's Catch 22
As time passes without a final Israeli-
Palestinian peace agreement, more
requests come in for building licenses.
The newspaper Ha'aretz reported
Tuesday that the Housing Ministry
plans to put land on the market before
year's end for another 5,000 homes in
West Bank settlements.
Critics often claim that Barak built
much more in the West Bank than
prior administrations, but faced little
backlash because his Labor-led coali-
tion was perceived internationally as
"
The issue is complicated by the fact
that the approval process for construc-
tion can drag on for years, meaning
that units built by one government
may have been planned and approved
by former administrations now insu-
lated from criticism.
Sharansky noted that 3,500 new
homes were built in settlements over
the past five years, 1,000 of them dur-
ing Barak's tenure.
"When there are negotiations, the
opponents say, 'Don't build during
negotiations,' " Sharansky said. "Now
that there are no negotiations, the
opponents say, 'Don't build because
that will deter a resumption of negoti-
ations.' That way, nothing would ever
get built."
The settlement issue stirs up instant,
almost instinctive condemnations
throughout the international commu-
nity — and these have been quick to
" pro-peace.
Inside Israel, too, settlement building
always generates controversy.
Some observers claim to see the first
signs of strain within the unity gov-
ernment as Labor's cabinet ministers
shuffle uneasily with the collective
responsibility for the decision.
Significantly, though, such creaking
on the coalition benches has been
muffled and low-key.
France was quick to claim this week
that settlement building, and not
Palestinian rejectionism, is the princi-
pal obstacle to peace in the region.
That claim must have gratified
Palestinian leaders, who have seized on
the construction announcement to put
the settlement issue back on the inter-
national agenda, taking the focus off
Palestinian-initiated violence.
More significant, however, is the fact
that the international outcry has failed
to exacerbate traditional Israeli rifts
between right and left. To most
Israelis, focused on the life and death
issue of Israeli-Palestinian gunfights,
the question of a few more houses
here or there seems marginal.
As with international criticism earli-
er in the intifada of Israel's allegedly
excessive use of force, Israel's peace
camp for the first time in decades is
proving unresponsive to — or out of
sync with — hostile world opinion.
Expressions of reservation are voiced
in articles and broadcasts, but without
the fire and passion that characterized
the peace camp's political battles in the
past.
\X/hat has changed appears to be the
left's former belief that coexistence or
belligerency depends on Israeli policy.
Since Palestinian Authority President
Yasser Arafat buried the peace camp's
best offer in a whirlpool of violence,
few Israelis, it seems, still labor under
the impression that decisions of war or
peace are made in Jerusalem, instead
of in Gaza.