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Israeli construction in the West Bank and GazaISRAEL’s ten-month moratorium on construction of settlements in the West Bank expired late on Sunday September 26th, and building has resumed in some parts. Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement pressure group, estimates that construction on over 2,000 dwellings could now begin or resume. Over the last two decades official statistics (which exclude East Jersualem) show that settlement construction in the West Bank and Gaza has tended to intensify around the time of peace talks, as Israeli prime ministers have sought to placate right-wingers. The last freeze was brought in by Yitzhak Rabin in 1992, but from the first contained loopholes. It was formally cancelled by Binyamin Netanyahu when he was elected four years later. This in part accounts for the drop in government construction during the '90s. The shift towards private construction reflects a general trend throughout Israel, though it is less pronounced in the settlements than elsewhere. ...

Posted on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 12:45:13 GMT at http://www.economist.com/daily/chartgall...8&fsrc=rss