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Israel to continue to build inside settlements

Says Netanyahu

Al P, Jerusalem
Hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel would continue to build Inside settlements in the occupied West Bank, despite calls from the United States to stop such activity.
"I have no intention to construct new settlements, but it makes no sense to ask us not to answer to the needs of natural growth and to stop all construction," a senior official quoted him as telling the cabinet.
During Netanyahu's first official visit to key ally Washington last week, US President Barack Obama told him that "settlements must be stopped," a call echoed by other senior administration officials and on Capitol Hill.
Israeli settlements in the West Bank are one of the major stumbling blocks in the halting Middle East peace process, which Obama has vowed to push forward despite a new largely right-wing government in Israel that backs settlements.
Earlier on Sunday ultranationalist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman ruled out a return to Israel's pre-1967 borders, and most ministers rebuffed calls to remove settlements - including those Israel itself considers illegal.
"A return to the borders of '67 today as we are being pressured to do, would not end the conflict, would not guarantee peace or security," Lieberman told reporters before the weekly cabinet meeting.
"It would simply move the conflict to within the '67 borders," he said, referring to Israel.
Israel seized the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and east Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War and continues to occupy the territories, except for Gaza, that today are home to about half a million Jewish settlers.
The new Israeli cabinet largely opposes dismantling settlements.
Lieberman said that removing the wildcat outposts should come in the framework of the international 2003 "roadmap" for Middle East peace, a step-by-step plan that foresees the creation of a Palestinian state.
Under its first phase, Israel committed to removing outposts and the Palestinians undertook to halt violence.
But Lieberman, known for his controversial statements, said the plan may have to be re-examined.
"Removing outposts should be part of an overall policy and cannot be patchwork," he said, referring to Israeli settlements in the West Bank that were not authorised by the government.
"The correct outline is the roadmap, which we might have to re-adopt on all its stages," he said. "And if it is necessary within the framework of the roadmap to
remove outposts, we will do so."
His position was largely echoed, with Interior Minister Eli Yishai of the ultraOrthodox Shas party saying: "1 don't see any reason to dismantle outposts before we decide on a unified policy."
Defence Minister Ehud Barak, whose Labour party is the most liberal member of the Netanyahu cabinet, bach idea of removing
outp. uit spoke of 22 such strut t ii a number several
times lower than that of watchdog groups.
"We should deal with the remaining 22 (outposts) in a responsible and correct way," he said '1 irst by talking and if that doesn't work then unilaterally
Under (he roadmap plan, Israel undertook to dismantle all outposts in the West Bank constructed after March 2001, with an Israeli commission later determining there were 26 such structures.
The Peace Now anti-settlement group, however, says that more than 50 outposts have been erected since March 2001 and that at present the West Bank has more than 100 outposts.
The international community considers all Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be illegal.
The main settler organisa-tion Yesha blasted Netanyahu's statements, saying that he "should respect the wishes of voters who voted en masse for parties that are in favour of continuing construction in Judea and Samaria," the Israeli name for the West Bank.