U.S. Will Not Compromise on Settlement Freeze

Alex Fishman and Shimon Shiffer in Yedioth Ahronoth:

Defense Minister Ehud Barak is to meet in New York today with special US envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell. Before he had even left Israel, messages began to come in from Washington indicating that the United States had no intention of compromising on a complete settlement construction freeze.

A source in the American administration said that Israeli willingness to halt all construction for a limited period of time was unacceptable.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu authorized Barak to tell Mitchell of Israel's willingness to suspend all construction in Judea and Samaria for a period of between three and six months.

But the United States wants an Israeli commitment to suspend all construction in the settlements, without any time limit or any other precondition. The Americans said that the only issue about which there
was room for any discussion was about buildings whose frames had already been built. Any other tricks on the issue of completing construction on sites on which only the groundwork has been done or planned houses that have only had their foundations laid so for-will not be accepted by the
Americans.

Barak is expected to tell Mitchell today that Israel intends to complete the construction of some 2,000 buildings that are in the final stages of construction, most of which are to fill public functions.

Barak also intends to say that Israel will not extend the construction freeze to East Jerusalem as well. Netanyahu and Barak reached an agreement that the moratorium on construction would be honored only if the Palestinians agreed to renew negotiations toward a final status arrangement that might end the conflict between the sides. Senior Israeli political officials said last night that signals were received from the Obama administration about the administration's willingness to reach a compromise solution.