Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel’s interim peace deal with the Palestinians doesn’t bar the building of Jewish settlements on occupied land.
At a news conference with Arab journalists, Netanyahu was asked about his government’s lifting of restrictions on such building. The restrictions had been imposed by the Labor government in 1992.
He said the Oslo accord doesn’t block construction. “It is a fact that even under the Labor government the existing settlements continued to grow,” Netanyahu asserted.
Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai’s office said Monday he had approved placing 298 trailer homes in Jewish settlements on occupied lands for public and educational use ahead of the school year.
Mordechai is responsible for approving settlement plans, and the news was sure to anger Israel’s Arab peace talks partners.
More than 130,000 Jews live amid nearly 2 million Arabs in the disputed areas.
Under the Labor government, settlements around Jerusalem and near the pre-1967 Middle East war border were allowed to expand. New settlements were barred. Israel and the PLO hammered out their historic 1993 interim peace deal in secret talks in Oslo.
