Netanyahu to Wait for Kerry to Leave before Declaring New Housing

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will be more polite in announcing new housing for Jews in Judea and Samaria this time around and will wait until U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is out of town before stating the plans, Army Radio reported Wednesday.

Almost every time an American official visits Israel and wins concessions for the Palestinian Authority, the Netanyahu government has announced almost simultaneously projects or the completion of a bureaucratic step for new homes in Judea and Samaria and in areas of Jerusalem that the Palestinian Authority claims as its territory.

That has been the case several times this year, especially after each release of Palestinian Authority terrorists.

A reporter covering the U.S. State Dept. asked spokeswoman Marie Harf Monday if Prime Minister Netanyahu is not following a “pattern.”

“One cannot help but notice that over the past three tranches of prisoners release, every time they were released there was also an announcement of settlements. So you don’t notice that this has been some sort of a pattern?” the journalist asked.

Again, I’m not going to use that word,” Harf answered. “I don’t want to put a label on it…. I don’t want to get ahead of what’s happening here now.”

Now Netanyahu apparently will mess up the pattern, at least for a few hours until Kerry is out of the way.