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GUEST: Yariv Oppenheimer, Director-General of Peace Now

Illegal Israeli settlements continue to expand in the West Bank ahead of a planned U.S. led Annapolis conference on Palestinian statehood. Peace Now, an Israeli pacifist group for Palestinian self-determination, has charted the growth in their most recent settlement watch report. Despite Israeli government pledges for a freeze on expansion, the report, “Construction in the Settlements Continues,” documents that the exact opposite has occurred from May to October 2007. In eighty-eight so-called authorized settlements, construction of everything, from single house to large housing unit projects continue unabated. Permanent structures are also being built in thirty-four “unauthorized” settlement outposts. With a growing settler population of about 267,000 people, Israelis haven taken to new methods of continuing expansion. Bypassing a ban transporting caravans, settlers now construct caravans within outpost areas and only instead transport materials. The Israeli army has largely stopped monitoring such construction in settlements, leading settler representatives able to respond to the report by stating, “We thank Peace Now for documenting this important Zionist project.”

For more information, visit www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/homepage.asp?pi=25