US says Israel should not expand settlements

Washington, Sept 8: The United States gently rebuked Israel for plans to build 690 new homes in two Jewish settlements in the West Bank despite an obligation under the US-backed ''roadmap'' peace plan to halt such construction.

''The policy is the same. .... There should not be expansion of the settlements,'' State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in response to a question at his daily briefing yesterday.

The United States appears to have little leverage over Israel to stop the construction of more homes in Jewish settlements and, in recent years, largely appears to have acquiesced in their expansion.

McCormack said that the US government raises the issue with Israel but typically does so in private.

''This is an issue that we do talk to the Israeli government about. Often times those discussions are done quietly and they are done privately, and you may not hear about them, but we do talk about the issue,'' he said.

An Israeli government agency has issued a tender inviting bids on 348 plots in the Maaleh Adumim settlement and 342 in Beitar Ilit.

The tenders published by Israeli media on Monday were the largest number of housing bids for settlement building offered since Prime Minister Ehud Olmert took office on May 4.

Some 240,000 Jewish settlers and 2.4 million Palestinians live in the West Bank, a territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

REUTERS

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