Israel fails to demolish West Bank buildings

The Israeli army has followed up on only three percent of its own orders to demolish illegal buildings in Jewish settlements in the West Bank over the last decade, a study says. The report by Peace Now, an Israeli settlement watchdog, follows pledges by the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, to freeze new construction in settlements. Israel also faces increasing pressure to dismantle illegal outposts in preparation for negotiations toward the founding of a Palestinian state. Based on Israeli army statistics, the report shows that the army carried out only three percent of its own demolition orders in the last decade, or 107 of 3,449 orders. Another 171 structures were evacuated. "We've had so many declarations, and none of these declarations have ever happened. What we want to see today is action," said Hagit Ofran, Peace Now's settlement watch director, who said dozens of illegal outposts and new construction projects falling outside this report have also been largely ignored by authorities. "In order to have real peace negotiations, you must make sure that on the ground you do whatever you can to move forward." The illegal structures listed for demolition included industrial buildings, mobile-phone towers, public offices and army installations as well as caravans and houses for settlers, and centered around the fast-growing settlements of Beit El and Ofra, north of Jerusalem, the report found. Jewish settlements are one of the most complicated and controversial issues facing Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, who are to meet again Dec. 12 after last week's summit in Annapolis, MD. The Palestinians want a state based on Israel's pre-1967 borders, while the Israelis have previously stated their intentions to keep three major settlement blocs that fall inside their 436-mile security barrier of electronic fencing and concrete slabs, still under construction. Israel committed in 2003 under the US-backed "road map" for peace to stop building new settlements and to dismantle unauthorized outposts, and Olmert has pledged to stick to a freeze on new settlements. But last week, the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, said it would be impossible "from a legal point of view to stop construction projects that have been ongoing for years." Israel plans new homes in East Jerusalem Israel announced plans on Dec. 4 to build more than 300 new homes in a disputed east Jerusalem neighborhood, drawing quick Palestinian condemnation that the move will undermine newly revived peace talks. The new housing would expand Har Homa, a Jewish neighborhood in an area Palestinians claim as capital of a future state. Palestinian officials appealed to the US to block the project, but Israel says a pledge to halt settlement activity does not apply anywhere in the holy city. Har Homa, where about 4,000 Israelis now live, is just inside the expanded city limits of Jerusalem, drawn after Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 war. Israel annexed east Jerusalem days after the war, but no country recognized that. Since 1967, Israel has built a string of Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, with about 180,000 residents. Har Homa, at the southern edge of the city line, is the newest. Palestinians object to Israeli construction in east Jerusalem, pointing to the internationally backed "road map" peace plan, which is the basis of renewed negotiations agreed on at the Mideast summit last week in Annapolis, MD, sponsored by President Bush. The road map's first phase bans building in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said he sent an urgent message to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, asking her to block the new construction. "This is undermining Annapolis," he said. "Israel's ever-expanding settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian territory poses the single greatest threat to the establishment of an independent, viable and contiguous Palestinian state, and hence, to a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians," Erekat said. Mark Regev, spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said, "Israel has never made a commitment to limit our sovereignty in Jerusalem. Implementation of the first phase of the road map does not apply to Jerusalem." Chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia rejected that. "Jerusalem is part of the Palestinian territories, and [Israel] should not build settlements on it, the same as the other areas occupied in 1967," he said. The road map says the status of Jerusalem should be negotiated in the final stage of the three-step plan. (AP) UN chief: Israel's settlement expansion plan 'not helpful' UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Dec. 6 said Israel's decision to expand a Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem was "not helpful" and he would discuss the matter with his partners in the diplomatic Quartet for Middle East peace. "The UN position on the illegality of settlements is well known," he told reporters. "This new tender for 300 new homes in east Jerusalem so soon after this Annapolis Middle East peace conference, I think, is not helpful," he added, referring to a recent US-hosted peace summit. (AFP)