Netanyahu says call for settlement freeze is “unreasonable”
Updated: Monday, June 01, 2009
Photographer: Wikipedia Commons
Benjamin Netanyahu
12:00GMT—8:00AM/EST
Washington, 1 June (WashingtonTV)—Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday described as “unreasonable” a US demand that Israel freeze all settlement activity in the West Bank.
Israeli officials say that the prime minister delivered his remarks to a closed parliamentary committee today.
While the Obama administration has demanded an end to all construction in the settlements, Netanyahu has said that some building must continue to accommodate so-called “natural growth”, reports the Associated Press.
A meeting participant said that Netanyahu told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Israel cannot “freeze life” in existing settlements.
Netanyahu was quoted as saying that “there are reasonable requests and unreasonable requests,” reports AP.
According to the Jerusalem Post, the Israeli premier asserted that his government would remove any illegal settlement outposts in the West Bank.
In protest to a crackdown on illegal outposts, mobs of Jewish settlers in the West Bank threw stones at Palestinian laborers and set fire to agricultural land, reports AP.
A resident said that nearly one acre of land was torched.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reported on Monday that Obama administration officials are debating how to toughen their stance against any expansion of Israel settlements in the West Bank.
According to the daily, officials said that the measures under discussion – all largely symbolic – would include stepping back from the United States’ near-uniform support for Israel in the United Nations.
Still, one official said that no one in the Obama administration expected the US-Israeli partnership to change.
Sources: Associated Press, Jerusalem Post, New York Times
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