Hours before peace talks were set to begin in Washington, Jewish settlers defiantly announced plans Thursday to launch new construction in their West Bank enclaves in a test of strength with Hamas. Naftali Bennett, director of the settlers' YESHA council, said settlers would begin building homes and public structures in at least 80 settlements, breaking a partial government freeze on building that ends on Sept. 26. “The idea is that de facto it (the freeze) is over,” Bennett said, criticizing the US-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian talks as aiming for a “phony peace” and rejecting Palestinian demands for a halt to settlement building on land they want for a state. “Once they understand Israelis are here to stay and only growing stronger day by day, they will give up,” Bennett said. The settlers, who have threatened to depose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he does not let them resume building after Sept. 26, ended the freeze unilaterally Wednesday, the day after gunmen killed four settlers in the occupied West Bank. Pro-settler parties are a majority in Netanyahu's right-wing coalition and a number of cabinet ministers have already backed demands to resume settlement construction. Earth-moving vehicles and cement mixers went to work in several settlements Wednesday, breaking ground for homes and community centres. Bennett said settlers had decided to double the number of building starts after news that two Israelis had been wounded in a separate West Bank shooting on Wednesday evening. The Islamist Palestinian group Hamas claimed both attacks. Many settlers oppose the two-state solution backed by the United States.
