Israel Acts to Expand Settlements in the West Bank as Netanyahu Meets with Obama

Just hours before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington, DC to meet with President Barack Obama on Monday, press reports in Israel revealed that the government had approved the construction of 2,200 new settlement units in the occupied West Bank.
It was the first conference between the two leaders since the resolution of the Iran nuclear deal, which Netanyahu loudly criticized, but it's not the first time an announcement of expanded settlement construction has come at a critical diplomatic moment. In 2010, Israel announced a raft of settlement construction on the eve of a visit from Vice President Joe Biden — a perceived slight to the Obama administration, which had called for a halt in settlement construction to make room for peace talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
More than five years later, the so-called peace process is dead in the water. Multiple US-led efforts to jumpstart talks have failed, and over the past month violence has flared across Israel and the West Bank. Settlers have torched Palestinian homes, Palestinians have taken to stabbing Israelis in the streets, and the Israeli army has forcefully clamped down on protests.

As Netanyahu was on his way to make nice with Obama, the Israeli newspaperHaaretz broke news about the Higher Planning Council of the Civil Administration's decision to move forward with plans to construct 2,200 new units and retroactively legalize two illegal outposts built on Palestinian land east of the Palestinian city of Ramallah.

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Illegal settlement expansion. The slow erosion of a future Palestinian state by Israel. Its time for the US to come out and call these actions for what they are, "illegal" and the US needs to do something about it such as holding back or refusing to give Israel aid.

This comes as a surprise to exactly no one. Netanyahu has openly bragged about derailing the peace process and shnookering the US, has openly said that he wouldn't facilitate a two-state solution, and is the leader of a political party that mandates settlement activity as an Israeli right.

Amadeus said:

This comes as a surprise to exactly no one. Netanyahu has openly bragged about derailing the peace process and shnookering the US, has openly said that he wouldn't facilitate a two-state solution, and is the leader of a political party that mandates settlement activity as an Israeli right.

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Netanyahu had bragged about building the least in the settlements among recent prime-ministers, has stated his commitment to the two-states solution just a moment ago in the White House, and nearly every political party in Israel sees the settlements as an Israeli right, but please - don't let the facts get in your way.

TheDemSocialist said:

Israel Acts to Expand Settlements in the West Bank as Netanyahu Meets with Obama

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The title is ridiculously misleading for two reasons; A) the approval was given last week, not "as Netanyahu meets with Obama", and B) 'Expand' makes you think of increasing the territory, while in reality it's about 2,200 houses built within large, long-existing settlements due to their natural growth.

Apocalypse said:

Netanyahu had bragged about building the least in the settlements among recent prime-ministers, has stated his commitment to the two-states solution just a moment ago in the White House, and nearly every political party in Israel sees the settlements as an Israeli right, but please - don't let the facts get in your way.

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So was Netanyahu lying then, or is he lying now?

I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in our way. … They asked me before the election if I'd honor [the Oslo accords] … I said I would, but … I'm going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the '67 borders. How did we do it? Nobody said what defined military zones were. Defined military zones are security zones; as far as I'm concerned, the entire Jordan Valley is a defined military zone. Go argue.

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Netanyahu: No Palestinian state on my watch - CNN.com

"Anyone who is going to establish a Palestinian state, anyone who is going to evacuate territories today, is simply giving a base for attacks to the radical Islam against Israel," he said. "This is the true reality that was created here in the last few years."

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He further said a strong government led by his Likud Party is necessary to beat back international pressure to divide Jerusalem and return Israel to its pre-1967 borders, according to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency report on the NRG interview.

"I do not give in," Netanyahu told NRG. "We stood fast against huge pressure, and we will continue to do so."

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It's interesting how positions "change" when you have your hand out, isn't it?

Amadeus said:

So was Netanyahu lying then, or is he lying now?

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Lying? You do realize that there are statistics, right? What he was saying is factually true.

Netanyahu: No Palestinian state on my watch - CNN.com

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Netanyahu to Fox News: I Didn't Retract Support for Two-state Solution - Israel Election 2015 - Israel News - Haaretz Israeli News Source

And again, he had just declared his commitment to the two-states solution. Obama's administration had just released a statement that there would probably be no solution to the conflict on Obama's watch, how is that different? It isn't.

It's interesting how positions "change" when you have your hand out, isn't it?

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It is interesting how facts become irrelevant when positions are needed to be held no matter what.

The Palestinian refusal to negotiate is not cost-free. The Palestinian leadership would do well to engage in good faith negotiations with Israel to reach an agreement on borders. Such an agreement would determine what settlements Israel would retain (the major blocs), what settlements Israel would give up, and what land swaps would be made. Afterward, there would be certainty about where Israel could build and where it could not. Unfortunately, President Abbas either does not understand this or seeks to perpetuate the dispute (at high cost to the Palestinian people) in a futile bid to evade the possibility of a two-state solution.

The Palestinian refusal to negotiate perpetuates the current dispute, including but not limited to territory. It also increases the likelihood that at some point in the future, Israel will carry out a disengagement from the West Bank that will grant the Palestinians much less territory than currently is possible through negotiations and that had been possible under Prime Ministers Barak, Olmert, and Netanyahu.

Unfortunately, the Palestinian leadership believes it can remain intransigent in pursuit of maximum demands that ignore Israel's needs (perhaps in the vain hope of an internationally imposed outcome consistent with those maximum demands) and, at the same time, be held harmless for its intransigence. That expectation is unrealistic. Such an outcome would almost certainly be without precedent. The Palestinian people have no sovereign state today solely on account of their own terrible leadership (Presidents Arafat and Abbas). The cumulative costs (actual and opportunity costs) continue to increase on account of that failed leadership.