US slams Israel’s West Bank housing plans

JERUSALEM ( AP) — Israel’s plans to build hundreds of new homes in Jewish West Bank settlements have put Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at odds again with Washington and the Palestinians, without appeasing set

tlers furious over the government’s plan to dismantle an illegally built settler enclave.

Engineers, meanwhile,

on Thursday questioned the government’s plan to physically uproot the fi ve apartment buildings that make up the Ulpana enclave, saying it would be a colossal waste of money and likely doomed to fail. Netanyahu, an ardent settlement champion, has proposed that plan to avert the spectacle of settlement homes being demolished on his watch.

On Wednesday, officials announced the government would build 850 apartments in various West Bank settlements after parliament, at Netanyahu’s urging, voted down a bill that would have legalized Ulpana and other settler outposts built illegally on privately held Palestinian land.

The international community condemns settlement construction, and the Palestin

ians have refused to talk peace while Israel builds on land they claim for a future state.

Netanyahu found himself in the politically difficult po

sition of having to carry out a Supreme Court ruling ordering the 30 apartments in Ulpana destroyed by July 1. Knowing it would not stand

up to the court’s scrutiny, he pressured coalition lawmakers on Wednesday to vote down a proposal by hardline legislators to legalize outposts built on privately held Palestinian land.

To blunt the blow to settlers, he vowed to build 300 more homes in the authorized

settlement of Beit El, on whose outskirts Ulpana lies.

``Israel is a democracy that

observes the law, and as prime minister I am obligated to preserve the law and preserve the settlements. And I say here that there is no contradiction

between the two,’’ he said

Wednesday after the vote.

Later, Construction Minister Ariel Attias announced that an additional 551 apartments would be built elsewhere in the West Bank.

`` Thirty apartments will be evacuated, but 850 will be built instead,’’ said Attias in a statement. ``Under the circumstances, this is a worthy

solution.’’