Netanyahu urges Israel to build more settlements
- From: xxx@xxxxxxx (FD)
- Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 10:30:50 GMT
If the Americans were has any sense of fairness they would classify him
as a "terrorist" and ban any group in the USA that supports him and
confiscate their funds like they have done with Islamic Jihad and Hamas
FD
=============================================
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.
aspx?
type=worldNews&storyID=2005-08-31T093910Z_01_MOL107111_RTRIDST_0_INTERNATIONAL
-MIDEAST-DC.XML
Netanyahu urges Israel to build more settlements
Wed Aug 31, 2005 5:39 AM ET165
By Allyn Fisher-Ilan
MAALE ADUMIM, West Bank (Reuters) - Benjamin Netanyahu launched his campaign
to oust bitter rival Ariel Sharon as Israel's prime minister with a call on
Wednesday for massive new West Bank settlement construction.
Staking out the battleground for the right-wing power struggle triggered by
Sharon's removal of settlers from Gaza, Netanyahu urged immediate building --
in defiance of Washington -- on a particularly sensitive area outside East
Jerusalem.
"The time has come to build here and I will build here," Netanyahu told
reporters on the rocky hillside between Jerusalem and the biggest West Bank
settlement of Maale Adumim.
Sharon says Israel plans to build in the E1-block despite U.S. criticism and
the fury of the Palestinians, who fear it would further cut them off from the
holy city they seek as the capital of a state under an eventual peace deal.
A police station is to be built in the block, but no housing is planned there
immediately.
Netanyahu declared his challenge to Sharon for leadership of their ruling
Likud party on Tuesday, a step that could lead to elections earlier than the
due date of November 2006 and is likely to keep any peacemaking with the
Palestinians on hold.
Netanyahu, 55, an ex-prime minister who resigned as Sharon's finance minister
over the Gaza withdrawal plan, is the darling of rightists who opposed giving
up any settlements on land Palestinians want for a state.
They fear it sets a precedent for giving up homes on land to which settlers
say they have a Biblical claim and that it rewards a Palestinian uprising.
DEEP SPLIT
Likud polls show Netanyahu would rout Sharon in a primary if it were held
soon, but he has far greater national popularity -- stirring speculation that
he could break away to form a new centrist party.
Sharon, 77, once godfather of the settler movement, has vowed that Israel will
never give up the biggest West Bank settlement blocs, but has said some
isolated ones could go under an eventual peace deal with the Palestinians.
Most Israelis backed the removal of 9,000 settlers from Gaza and four of 120
West Bank enclaves housing over 245,000 Jews alongside 2.4 million
Palestinians. Polls show support for removing more small West Bank settlements
under any peace deal.
Netanyahu said Sharon's removal of settlers from Gaza had paved the way for
further pullbacks everywhere and suggested that could include Jerusalem, which
Israel says is its undivided capital, a claim not recognized internationally.
Palestinians want Arab East Jerusalem, captured with Gaza and the West Bank in
the 1967 war, for the capital of a state.
"We have seen on the hills that not a single home is being built by Israelis.
The Palestinians have started building houses," Netanyahu said near Maale
Adumim. "That is something that will change when we return the real Likud to
power."
The World Court brands all the settlements illegal, though Israel disputes
this and the United States has said Israel could expect to keep some West Bank
land under any peace settlement that leads to Palestinian statehood.
Israel has failed to freeze all settlement construction and remove
unauthorized settler outposts, as called for in a U.S.-inspired peace "road
map." The Palestinians have not met their own commitment to start dismantling
militant groups.
A poll in the best-selling Yedioth Ahronoth daily said 54 percent of Israelis
preferred Sharon as prime minister while only 26 percent wanted Netanyahu.
© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.
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