An Unsurprising Response

In the early 1990s, Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo accords, an agreement that outlined a plan for reaching peace between Israel and the Palestinians. All of the negotiations and agreements since then have been the result of the Oslo accords. Today, Palestinians rule themselves in the Gaza Strip and large portions of the West Bank because of these accords. The central tenet of the Oslo accords is that there will be a two state solution that will be reached only through a settlement negotiated by the parties.

With the vote yesterday by the UN to give Palestine observer status in the General Assembly, the Palestinians basically threw away the Oslo accords. Today, we got the response from the Israelis.

At a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, the Israeli government gave approval to the construction of 3000 new apartment units and homes in and around Jerusalem. These units are located on land that was controled by Jordan prior to 1967, so they get classified as "settlements" by the Palestinians. Israel had held up approval of this construction for years in deference to the requests of the USA and in an attempt to get talks started again. With the abrogation of Oslo by the Palestinians, the Israelis are going back to letting their people build new homes in all portions of the metro area of the capital. These new apartments will connect central Jerusalem with Maale Admunim, a suburban area northeast of the city.

To say the least, this is a low key response from the Israelis. They could have cut off the flow of tax revenues which they collect for the Palestinian Authority (and they still may do that.) They could have reoccupied the areas of the West Bank that are self governing.

I am sure that in the next day or so we will hear the usual protests against the Israeli construction of homes for Jews in the Jewish capital city. Too bad that the protesters do not know what they are talking about.