Israeli settlements: frozen, still cooking

[Matt Rees]

JERUSALEM — Palestinian negotiators said again this week they’d refuse to re-enter direct peace talks with Israel unless the current partial freeze on construction in Israeli settlements is extended when its term runs out in September.

But as <a href="http://www.btselem.org/English/Publications/Summaries/201007_By_Hook_and_by_Crook.asp">a report</a> released this week by the Israeli human-rights organization B’Tselem reveals, a real settlement freeze would have to be a very, very big chill.

B’Tselem’s report, called “By Hook or By Crook: Israeli Settlement Policy in the West Bank,” documents the massive scope of Israel’s settlement operation. It says that hundreds of millions of dollars are being paid to settlers, real estate developers and settlement municipalities as incentives to expand the settlements. It also highlights the manner in which every layer of Israeli bureaucracy continues to be involved in an expansion project that successive Israeli governments have pledged in international forums to halt.

For the human rights group, the issue is not political. Jessica Montell, B’Tselem’s executive director, said that the inequality of life in the West Bank — rather good if you’re an Israeli and pretty bad if you’re Palestinian — is the most objectionable upshot of the settlements, which she adds are illegal under international law.

“In the West Bank, your rights are based on your nationality,” she said.

Read the rest of this post on my blog The Man of Twists and Turns.