Brushing off U.S. demands for a settlement freeze, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday he would continue building in the Jewish enclaves in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to accommodate natural population growth. Netanyahu’s defiant stance raised tensions with the United States at a time when Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is trying to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Netanyahu surprised Albright this week by announcing he would build 300 more homes in the West Bank settlement of Efrat, despite her recent call for a “timeout” in such settlement construction. “I am calling on the prime minister to honor the timeout,” an angry Albright said Thursday. The Netanyahu government has argued it must continue to build to accommodate the settlement’s natural growth.
