Obama Admin ‘won’t Be Around Forever’ — Israeli Minister On W. Bank Settlement Stall

The Obama admin­is­tra­tion has led the charge against Jewish set­tle­ment con­struc­tion in the con­test­ed West Bank, Israel’s defense min­is­ter has said, adding that he hopes the slow­down will be “tem­po­rary”.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Israel wants to con­struct more set­tle­ments in the West Bank, but an out­pour­ing of glob­al con­dem­na­tion — spear­head­ed by the United States — has side­lined those aspirations.

READ MORE: Palestinian min­is­ter dies after run-in with IDF sol­diers in West Bank protest

“I real­ly want to approve plans and build more – right now this issue pro­vokes a reac­tion first and fore­most from the Americans, and then threats from var­i­ous sources,” Ya’alon said, as quot­ed by Haaretz, on Tuesday address­ing high school stu­dents in a Jewish West Bank settlement.

According to Ya’alon, the United States has “led the charge” and Israel has been “very, very care­ful not to push the enve­lope too much.” The con­struc­tion will even­tu­al­ly begin again because the Obama admin­is­tra­tion “won’t be around for­ev­er.” The com­ments, also broad­cast on Israeli Army Radio, may fur­ther strain rela­tions between the gov­ern­ment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Obama administration.

In October, top-rank­ing offi­cials in the Obama admin­is­tra­tion, includ­ing Vice-President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry refused to meet Ya’alon dur­ing a vis­it to Washington.

The snub should not have come as a sur­prise, how­ev­er, con­sid­er­ing the Israeli min­is­ter had ear­li­er been quot­ed in Israeli news­pa­per Yedioth Ahronoth as accus­ing Kerry of being “obses­sive and mes­sian­ic” in regard to his stren­u­ous efforts to bro­ker a peace agree­ment between Israelis and Palestinians, an elu­sive objec­tive that has evad­ed US lead­ers for decades.

READ MORE: Israel approves plan to build 1,000 set­tler homes in E. Jerusalem

The human rights group Peace Now said that while there have been no new set­tle­ment projects since a meet­ing between Obama and Netanyahu in October, the con­struc­tion of pre­vi­ous­ly announced hous­ing con­tin­ues, AP cit­ed the group as say­ing. Israel attract­ed the crit­i­cism of the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty when it accept­ed ten­ders — short­ly after a 50-day con­flict in the Gaza Strip that left some 2,200 peo­ple dead, the major­i­ty of them Gazans — to con­struct over 1,000 new set­tler homes in East Jerusalem.
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