After the second prisoner release this week, the construction of new homes are the payback that the government is giving to the right wing. According to Haaretz, 5’000 new homes will soon be approved in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.Abbas should be happy because he thinks new homes will be turned over to the PA according to The Jewish Press. Israel announced on Wednesday it will be build 1,500 more homes for Jews in areas that the Palestinian Authority, the United Nations and the Obama administration publicly say will be inhabited by Arabs in a future Palestinian Authority state. So what do the right wing parties say about that? Well, it seems they are too busy…
Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid have agreed to rebuild the strong working connection that existed when the coalition was forming. This includes ongoing efforts to draft chareidim into the IDF, and Bennett and Lapid agreed to focus on moving this piece of legislation along at a brisk pace according to The Yeshiva World News. The two agreed that if they do not focus on pushing the bill along it may be lost. Meanwhile, other Bayit Yehudi ministers have openly stated that the bill is an affront to the Jewish character of the state.
According to Debka, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu lamented on Monday that the release Tuesday night of 26 jailed Palestinians serving life sentences for murdering Israelis, the cause of widespread popular ire, was “one of the hardest decisions” he has ever made. However, the Palestinians have made 16 new (secret) demands for the continuation of negotiations. Amongst them: The United States and Israel must acknowledge that the Palestinian state is “under occupation”; Israel’s withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines; Israel and its armed forces will draw back from the Palestinian state over a three-year period; and every Palestinian refugee (as per the Palestinian Authority’s definition of up to the fourth generation) will be free to choose between three options: settlement in Israel or the Palestinian state or staying at their present locations. Possibly the only demand that almost everyone can agree on already – all parts of the Palestinian state will be clear of Israeli civilian and military presence.