Confiscation of Palestinian land continues

Israel claims that new construction in eastern Jerusalem , captured in 1967, cannot be called settlement activity because Israel annexed the eastern half and it is no longer occupied territory. Unfortunately, no other country recognizes the annexation. Every other government in the world, including the United States , believes that east Jerusalem is occupied territory, and that civilian Israeli construction there is forbidden under the Geneva Conventions.

More important, Israel committed itself in the framework of President Bush’s 2003 Road Map to peace to “freeze all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements).” There’s no exception for new building inside the settlements’ municipal boundaries, which Israel insists it’s entitled to do. New homes for the settlers’ growing families are exactly what is meant by “natural growth.”