Israel Announces Freeze on New Home Construction in West Bank

In a televised news conference on Wednesday evening Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, ""This is not an easy step and it is painful. We are taking it in order to encourage the resumption of negotiations to achieve peace with our Palestinian neighbours" the Toronto Star reports. The moratorium ignited fierce criticism from some of the Prime Minister's right-wing coalition partners. Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein categorically rejected the moratorium:

Freezing the building means freezing having children and later concessions and transferring Jews who want to settle the land of Israel. I will not give my hand to a move that will endanger Israel's security without bringing us any closer to peace.

The settlers themselves have vowed to do everything in their power to undermine and subvert the moratorium. Dani Dayan, leader of the West Bank settlers' council, told The Associated Press, "We feel that he is going in a very slippery slope in which he is betraying his own beliefs. We will do everything in our capacity to keep building, to keep developing our communities, and I am optimistic that we will prevail." The proposed moratorium has also received scant support from the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinians reject it because it contains so many conditions. The 3,000 houses under construction but not completed will be completed. The moratorium only applies to residential construction. The construction of infrastructure from roads to schools, will continue unabated. Most disturbing to the Palestinians is that Jerusalem is excluded from the freeze. The Israelis insist that Jerusalem is indivisible and a part of Israel not Palestine. Conversely, the Palestinians insist that Jerusalem is an integral element of the West Bank Virtually alone, the Obama administration lauded the Israeli moratorium. Reuters reported U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's statement, "Today's announcement by the government of Israel helps move forward toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," Reuters also reported U.S. Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell told a State Department briefing "It falls short of a full settlement freeze, but it is more than any Israeli government has done before and can help move toward agreement between the parties."