Jul. 22 2009 - 8:55 am | 3 views | 0 recommendations | 0 comments

NPR: Talk of Freezing West Bank Settlements Causes Unexpected Construction Boom

By EILEEN WHITE READ

NPR: A Palestinian laborer prays as his colleagues work at the construction site of new houses in the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim in the West Bank, June 7. Tensions between the U.S. and Israel are rising as President Obama presses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to freeze all new settlement activity. AFP/Getty Images

NPR: A billboard in front of a building under construction in Maale Adumim invites prospective buyers to view a model apartment.

National Public Radio’s Peter Kenyon has a story about a housing boom in the most unexpected place: The settlements in the West Bank area of occupied Palestine. The international community and most Israelis, according to recent polls, call for a halt to illegal settlement of Palestine by religious zealots. However, NPR notes, potential settlers are flocking to the gated, guarded, religiously-segregated communities largely because of price. [This housing, though illegal under international law, is heavily subsidized by the current government and receives millions in private donations.]

Kenyon reports from one of the oldest, largest (pop.35,000,) and most notorious, Ma’ale Adumim, located perilously close to the Old City of Jerusalem and zoned to grow to about 10 times its current size. Standing on Mount Scopus, looking into the Judean desert, one used to see caves, olive groves, ancient rock formations, and centuries-old traditional villages. Earlier this year during my visit, this Biblical view was blocked by the white limestone hulk of dozens of Ma’ale Adumim apartment blocks, along with the infrastructure created to keep its residents segregated: the 27-tall separation wall, the modern highways that neither Arabs nor Christians can drive on, the military vehicles, the barbed-wire fences. Yet residents of this settlement, Kenyon notes, ignore what’s going on outside their cocoon.

“Israel’s recent settlement activity reminds some observers of the old joke about traffic lights. A young boy is asked if he knows what the lights mean, and after considering his parents’ driving habits, he says he does: Red means stop, green means go, and yellow means go really fast.

In Maale Adumim, a modern, pristine settlement in the hills east of Jerusalem, developers have seen the yellow light of U.S. pressure and are responding with a mini-rush on apartments.

The sounds of construction ring out across the red rock hills of the West Bank. They can be heard in the Bedouin camps in the valleys below, where Palestinians fear the ever-increasing settler population will soon squeeze them out.”

Listen to the NPR story, the first of two parts, or read the transcript here.