New Homes in Betar Ilit
Israel adds to West Bank home boom
Another 532 units to be constructed
Chicago Tribune
August 24, 2004
Joel Greenberg, Special to the Tribune.
BEITAR ILIT, West Bank
On a rocky ridge stretching beyond the apartment houses of this sprawling Jewish settlement, bulldozers and trucks were preparing the ground Monday for hundreds more homes.
Puffs of dust drifted skyward as the heavy machinery churned up the earth. A first row of completed apartment buildings jutted into the new construction zone, where a wide road already has been paved.
Beitar Ilit, a community of 27,000 strictly religious Jews just a
15-minute drive from Jerusalem, is booming, one of the biggest and fastest-growing Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
According to Mayor Yitschak Pindrus, population growth here is a whopping 13 percent to 16 percent a year, because of a high birthrate and large numbers of ultra-Orthodox newcomers moving to the settlement from Jerusalem and other Israeli cities, as well as some from abroad.
"Because Beitar is part of greater Jerusalem and part of the Israeli
consensus, the government never stopped building in Beitar ," Pindrus said Monday, sitting in his office under a wall-size aerial photo of the settlement.
Last week the Israeli government announced plans to build 1,001 new housing units in four large West Bank settlements, 604 of them in Beitar Ilit.
On Monday, Israeli officials confirmed plans to build 532 more units in four other settlements: Har Gilo, Har Adar and Adam near Jerusalem, and Emmanuel in the northern West Bank.
Earlier this month, plans were disclosed to build 600 units in Maaleh
Adumim, the largest West Bank settlement.
The surge in construction in the settlements, where building has continued under successive Israeli governments, comes as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is struggling to gain support for his plan to withdraw Israeli settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip and evacuate four small settlements in the West Bank.
Settlements bolstered
Facing resistance to the withdrawal from hard-line members of his Likud Party, Sharon has pledged to bolster large settlements in the West Bank even as he moves to withdraw from Gaza.
At a meeting in Washington in April, Sharon won President Bush's support for retaining the large settlements in a final peace agreement.
A further shift in American policy was reported Saturday, when The New York Times cited U.S. and Israeli officials as saying that the Bush administration, in an effort to help Sharon placate his critics, has quietly agreed to new construction within the built-up areas of some West Bank settlements.
Israeli officials maintain that this understanding has been in place for some time and may have been disclosed now to help Bush appeal to Jewish voters.
An indication of an understanding with Israel appeared in a letter sent in April to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice by Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weisglass. In the letter, Weisglass wrote that an Israeli team and the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, would review aerial photos of the settlements and "jointly define the construction line of each of the settlements."
A team of American experts is expected to travel to Israel in the coming weeks to view the aerial photos and help delineate building lines in the settlements. The team also will monitor Israel's progress in removing dozens of unauthorized outposts set up in recent years by settlers in the West Bank.
American agreement to continued Israeli construction in settlements would run counter to the peace plan known as the road map that was presented last year by the U.S., Russia, the United Nations and the European Union. The plan says that Israel should freeze "all settlement activity [including natural growth of the settlements]."
U.S. backpedals
Until now, U.S. officials have responded to reports of new Israeli
building in settlements with demands that Israel adhere to the road map, but after the announcement last week of plans for 1,001 new homes, Adam Ereli, the State Department spokesman, said the U.S. is studying the details.
On Monday, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said Israel's
intensified construction is exacerbating tensions.
"While it is talking about evacuating settlements in Gaza, it is expanding all settlements in the West Bank," he said. "This will not bring about stability, nor will it bring peace."
At Beitar Ilit, earth-moving work for new apartments extends well beyond the built-up area, more than 2 miles from the entrance to the settlement. However, a fence surrounds the ridge where the bulldozers and trucks are at work, marking a wide boundary carved out for the settlement among the terraced olive groves and vineyards of neighboring Palestinian villages.
Mayor Pindrus said the construction zone was all part of the settlement and did not represent any expansion beyond its boundary. Long-range development plans call for the construction of 3,000 new housing units, of which more than 1,000 already have been completed, he said.
On the tidy streets of Beitar Ilit, studded with synagogues and
yeshivas, the controversy over its expansion seemed a world away Monday. Boys and girls headed home from school, bearded men in black coats and white shirts ran errands, and women watched over children in playgrounds. Billboards advertised new apartments for sale with balconies and yards, and bank mortgages to finance the purchase.
Yaacov Turneheim, 39, a father of nine who moved to Beitar Ilit when it was founded 14 years ago, said he bought his first apartment at the settlement for "a ridiculous price" with a government-subsidized mortgage that he is repaying on generous terms.
"This place has all the community services a Jew needs, without the temptations and problems of the big city," he said. "The quality of life is fantastic."
Another 532 units to be constructed
Chicago Tribune
August 24, 2004
Joel Greenberg, Special to the Tribune.
BEITAR ILIT, West Bank
On a rocky ridge stretching beyond the apartment houses of this sprawling Jewish settlement, bulldozers and trucks were preparing the ground Monday for hundreds more homes.
Puffs of dust drifted skyward as the heavy machinery churned up the earth. A first row of completed apartment buildings jutted into the new construction zone, where a wide road already has been paved.
Beitar Ilit, a community of 27,000 strictly religious Jews just a
15-minute drive from Jerusalem, is booming, one of the biggest and fastest-growing Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
According to Mayor Yitschak Pindrus, population growth here is a whopping 13 percent to 16 percent a year, because of a high birthrate and large numbers of ultra-Orthodox newcomers moving to the settlement from Jerusalem and other Israeli cities, as well as some from abroad.
"Because Beitar is part of greater Jerusalem and part of the Israeli
consensus, the government never stopped building in Beitar ," Pindrus said Monday, sitting in his office under a wall-size aerial photo of the settlement.
Last week the Israeli government announced plans to build 1,001 new housing units in four large West Bank settlements, 604 of them in Beitar Ilit.
On Monday, Israeli officials confirmed plans to build 532 more units in four other settlements: Har Gilo, Har Adar and Adam near Jerusalem, and Emmanuel in the northern West Bank.
Earlier this month, plans were disclosed to build 600 units in Maaleh
Adumim, the largest West Bank settlement.
The surge in construction in the settlements, where building has continued under successive Israeli governments, comes as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is struggling to gain support for his plan to withdraw Israeli settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip and evacuate four small settlements in the West Bank.
Settlements bolstered
Facing resistance to the withdrawal from hard-line members of his Likud Party, Sharon has pledged to bolster large settlements in the West Bank even as he moves to withdraw from Gaza.
At a meeting in Washington in April, Sharon won President Bush's support for retaining the large settlements in a final peace agreement.
A further shift in American policy was reported Saturday, when The New York Times cited U.S. and Israeli officials as saying that the Bush administration, in an effort to help Sharon placate his critics, has quietly agreed to new construction within the built-up areas of some West Bank settlements.
Israeli officials maintain that this understanding has been in place for some time and may have been disclosed now to help Bush appeal to Jewish voters.
An indication of an understanding with Israel appeared in a letter sent in April to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice by Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weisglass. In the letter, Weisglass wrote that an Israeli team and the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, would review aerial photos of the settlements and "jointly define the construction line of each of the settlements."
A team of American experts is expected to travel to Israel in the coming weeks to view the aerial photos and help delineate building lines in the settlements. The team also will monitor Israel's progress in removing dozens of unauthorized outposts set up in recent years by settlers in the West Bank.
American agreement to continued Israeli construction in settlements would run counter to the peace plan known as the road map that was presented last year by the U.S., Russia, the United Nations and the European Union. The plan says that Israel should freeze "all settlement activity [including natural growth of the settlements]."
U.S. backpedals
Until now, U.S. officials have responded to reports of new Israeli
building in settlements with demands that Israel adhere to the road map, but after the announcement last week of plans for 1,001 new homes, Adam Ereli, the State Department spokesman, said the U.S. is studying the details.
On Monday, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said Israel's
intensified construction is exacerbating tensions.
"While it is talking about evacuating settlements in Gaza, it is expanding all settlements in the West Bank," he said. "This will not bring about stability, nor will it bring peace."
At Beitar Ilit, earth-moving work for new apartments extends well beyond the built-up area, more than 2 miles from the entrance to the settlement. However, a fence surrounds the ridge where the bulldozers and trucks are at work, marking a wide boundary carved out for the settlement among the terraced olive groves and vineyards of neighboring Palestinian villages.
Mayor Pindrus said the construction zone was all part of the settlement and did not represent any expansion beyond its boundary. Long-range development plans call for the construction of 3,000 new housing units, of which more than 1,000 already have been completed, he said.
On the tidy streets of Beitar Ilit, studded with synagogues and
yeshivas, the controversy over its expansion seemed a world away Monday. Boys and girls headed home from school, bearded men in black coats and white shirts ran errands, and women watched over children in playgrounds. Billboards advertised new apartments for sale with balconies and yards, and bank mortgages to finance the purchase.
Yaacov Turneheim, 39, a father of nine who moved to Beitar Ilit when it was founded 14 years ago, said he bought his first apartment at the settlement for "a ridiculous price" with a government-subsidized mortgage that he is repaying on generous terms.
"This place has all the community services a Jew needs, without the temptations and problems of the big city," he said. "The quality of life is fantastic."
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