Netanyahu pushes ahead on settlements
JERUSALEM (AP): SRAEL ANNOUNCED plans yesterday to build 2,500 more settler homes on the West Bank, moving to step up construction just days after the swearing-in of Donald Trump brought to power a US administration seen as friendly to the settlement movement.
“We are building – and we will continue to build,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote in a Facebook post.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer did not answer directly when asked about Trump’s reaction.
“Israel continues to be a huge ally of the United States,” Spicer said. “He wants to grow closer with Israel to make sure that it gets the full respect that it deserves in the Middle East.”
While Trump has signalled that he will be far more tolerant of Israeli settlement construction than his predecessors, he also has expressed a desire to broker a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians, and siding closely with Israel on such a contentious matter could hurt US credibility.
Netanyahu repeatedly clashed with President Barack Obama over settlement construction.
IThis March 14, 2011 file photo shows a general view of a construction site in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Modiin Illit B’tselem. Israel says it has approved 2,500 homes in West Bank settlements.
Obama, like the rest of the international Security Council to pass a resolution government for a new era in community, considered the condemning the settlements as relations. building of settlements on occupied illegal. Trump has already invited Netanyahu lands claimed by the Palestinians to Trump harshly criticised Obama for to visit the White House next month, be an obstacle to peace. Those tensions going against Israel and promised a and both men, after speaking on the boiled over last month when the new approach after taking office, phone Sunday, promised close coordination Obama White House allowed the UN raising hopes inside Israel’s nationalist on a range of sensitive matters.