Netanyahu snubs US to approve hundreds of new West Bank homes

Published on Friday 4 September 2009 22:06

ISRAELI prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to defy the US push for a freeze on settlement in the West Bank by approving hundreds of new houses for Jewish settlers.

A government aide said that after the new construction was approved, Mr Netanyahu would be prepared to consider a freeze lasting a few months.

Israel is also seeking to exclude from the freeze 2,500 homes already being built in the West Bank and to continue construction in East Jerusalem, which it occupied in 1967.

News of the planned approvals came just days after talks between President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell and Israeli officials over the freeze.

The Americans hope agreement on the freeze can be reached so that the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations can be announced at the UN General Assembly later this month.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has made it clkear that a settlement freeze is a precondition for restarting talks.

Galia Golan, a political scientist at the Inter-disciplinary Centre in Herzliya, near Tel Aviv, said: "US credibility is at stake but it doesn't look good. Netanyahu has delivered a serious blow to the efforts to restart talks."