Israel building 3,000 new settler homes

Israel is building 3,000 homes in Jewish settlements on the occupied West Bank, and their continued growth could make a viable Palestinian state impossible, the Peace Now group said on Feb. 21. The anti-settlement watchdog said the number of settlements had not risen in 2006 but their population rose by five percent–three times the growth in Israel. "The settlement blocs are becoming bigger and bigger and actually getting deeper into the West Bank," Peace Now director general Yaariv Oppenheimer said. Oppenheimer was speaking near the Hilltop 468 outpost, one of a string of settlements and outposts stretching east from Jerusalem to the Jordan Valley which Peace Now says will drive a wedge between the north and south sections of the West Bank. Pointing to the nearby urban sprawl of Maaleh Adumim, home to 30,000 Jewish settlers, Peace Now activist Dror Etkes said the expansion of the settlement "bubble" east of Jerusalem would doom chances of forming a Palestinian state alongside Israel. "If Israel carries out this plan... the chances for any political solution based on the two-state solution become grimmer and grimmer," Etkes said. The continued building is in violation of a US-backed peace "road map" that calls for a freeze to such construction.