Settlements continue despite "Freeze"

Hagit Ofran from Peace Now Settlement Watch wrote to us:

There is much international controversy right now regarding the building freeze in the settlements. It might seem because of the focus on the building in East Jerusalem, that other than that the building has stopped.

This is not the case, as these examples show:

• In the last couple of months there has been a building boom in Kiryat Arba settlement near Hebron (since July 2009).
• In Nofei Mamreh neighborhood over a hundred building units, massive land preparation near the Yeshiva (learning seminary) in Harsina neighborhood, more building in the center of the settlement and digging next to the girls' seminary for a new building.

BTW, the leftover building supplies are thrown onto Palestinian privately owned land, as seen here :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9AAH2fqrUM

In general, there is a lot of building going on in settlements at the moment. Most of the plans were approved in the past (before the so called freeze) and the construction is the initiative of the settlers themselves, either private or the local municipalities. The state sponsored projects have stopped.

So what we have now is a passive settlement freeze, meaning, the government isn't initiating on its own (except for the much publicized building in East Jerusalem) but it certainly isn't stopping building plans on the ground. All the government would need to do for an actual freeze would be to decide that any building permit, new or old, needs government permission. This of course isn't happening, and that is why so much building is going on.