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Ban: ‘Settlements Undermine Efforts For Peace’ WHAT??!!

By C. J. Refsland on June 15, 2013 • ( 0 )

My Comment: I have but one question. Why is the world upset with Israeli’s allowing their citizens to develop their land, and live there? This is the most redundant problem that they are creating. In reality the so called palestinians would not even have the slightest interest in this if it were left as desert and undeveloped. Remember what the land looked like before Israel took over? Here is Mark Twain’s description of the land before Israel was given it back:

Now read the below article and answer my question. Mark Twains comments about no timbers were the result of these people under the Ottoman Empire’s rule. They had a tax on tree’s (no joke look it up) so everyone cut the tree’s down so as not to pay taxes, and even someone who has no agriculture background knows what happens when you cut all tree’s. So the land of Israel lay desolate until God returned the Jew’s to their land and it responded to their touch and bloomed. This too is in the Bible!

Israel National News

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday slammed Israel’s plans to increase construction in Judea and Samaria, saying they were undermining hopes of ending the Middle East conflict by setting up a Palestinian state.

“The secretary general is deeply concerned by the continuing expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank in violation of international law,” said UN spokesman Martin Nesirky, according to the AFP news agency.

Ban was “particularly troubled” at Israel moving forward with plans for more than 1,000new homes in two communities Judea and Samaria, the spokesman said.

He was referring to plans to build 538 new homes in Itamar and to legalize 137 existing units there were submitted to regional authorities this week for review, as well plans to build 550 homes in Bruchin.

“These are unhelpful decisions that undermine progress towards the two-state solution,” Nesirky said, according to AFP.

“They constitute a deeply worrisome trend at a moment of ongoing efforts to relaunch peace negotiations,” he added. “The secretary general calls on Israel to heed the calls of the international community to freeze settlement activity and abide by its commitments under international law and the Road Map.”

On Thursday, the United States also sharply criticized Israel’s plans to move ahead with 1,000 new homes for Jews in Judea and Samaria, saying they were unhelpful to U.S. efforts to kickstart negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

“We don’t accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.

“We remain hopeful that both sides will look at the important opportunity we have here to build trust and confidence and move back to the negotiating table, and that’s what our focus is on.”

Also on Thursday, Housing Minister Uri Ariel (Bayit Yehudi) announced that 1,000 new housing units for Jews will be built in the Etzion Bloc, in Judea. The State Department was apparently not aware of these plans, however.