On occasion, reading how the news that’s dearest to our own heart is reported by a source that is diametrically opposed to our position can be an eye opening experience. So, here’s Gulf News reported our own shocking story about the fact there are no housing starts in Jerusalem, and that the Netanyahu government—that right wing, pro-settlement government so many of us voted for—has been keeping a near-perfect housing freeze, at least for Jews. Arabs are a different story.
So, I’m not changing a word, this is strictly a copy and paste job:
Israel Freezes New Colony Projects
Housing minister says move may be temporary to placate US Secretary of State
Occupied Jerusalem: Israel has frozen nearly all housing starts in colonies in the West Bank and Occupied East Jerusalem, Housing Minister Uri Ariel said on Tuesday, in an apparent bid to help US efforts to revive peace talks with the Palestinians.
The step, confirmed several weeks ago by the Israel’s anti-colony Peace Now movement, has had no impact on construction already under way in colonies – projects that have raised Palestinian concern and drawn international condemnation.
Colony construction on Palestinian land was the main reason for the breakdown of US-sponsored negotiations in 2010 and has been cited as a stumbling block to Secretary of State John Kerry’s latest bid to restart talks.
“I’ll give you the facts: in Jerusalem, since the beginning of the year, there have been no tenders except for one and the same goes for Judea and Samaria,” Ariel, using the Biblical names for the Israeli-occupied West Bank, told Army Radio. Ariel, a member of the pro-colonist Jewish Home party, said he believed the step was temporary and that he was working to end it.
All right, you fellow colonists, now you know what’s down. It appears there’s more of an understanding between Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office and Gulf News, than there is between Netanyahu and Minister Uri Ariel.