End of Israeli Settlement Freeze Threatens Peace Talks

JERUSALEM, Sept. 23, 2010 -- On Sunday Israel's 10 month freeze on settlement construction in the Palestinian territories is scheduled to end. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warns if it is not extended, he will pull out of freshly launched peace negotiations. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shows no sign of agreeing.

Despite U.S. attempts to conjure an eleventh hour compromise, the issue threatens to destroy the talks and what promised a limited foreign policy success story for the Obama administration.

In the Jewish settlement of Efrat just 20 minutes south of Jerusalem but deep in the West Bank, settlers -- many of them immigrants from the U.S. -- are itching to start building again. Less than a mile away Palestinians from the village of Wadi Nis are determined that must not happen.

Efrat's Mayor Oded Revivi looked from atop a dusty hillside on the outskirts of what he calls his "town" where plans for 32 new homes were blocked by Netanyahu's decision to impose the freeze.

"I think there was never any justification for it to come in the first place and there's definitely no justification for it to carry on," he said, referring to the construction moratorium.

Others in Efrat reject the Palestinians' insistence on a building freeze calling it an unnecessary precondition to negotiations.

Efrat is home to almost 9,000 settlers, many of them religious Jews who see their presence on the West Bank as a fulfilment of Biblical prophecy. But economics has played its part as well, with a family home here far cheaper than the equivalent in cities like Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

The original plans for Efrat drawn up 28 years ago envisaged a city of 30,000 people. Revivi says the pressure for more homes is intense and admits that plans already exist for 4,000 more. He says once the freeze ends, the building can start.

"In the matter of practicalities it can be done within days, within a day or two we can have the tractors turned on and starting to work," he said.

Unlike many settlements in the West Bank Efrat does not have a security fence. A fact which is the cause of much pride and evidence, settlers claim, of their close and friendly relations with the local Palestinians. Revivi calls them "our neighbors."