Official PA daily: Israel's building in its Negev region is also a "settlement"

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=9034 by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik The Palestinian Authority daily recently published a report attacking Israel's program to resolve questions of land ownership in Israel's southern desert region, called the Negev. The PA daily refers to Israeli building in the Negev as additional "settlement": "The Netanyahu government has not decided to freeze settlement, but rather has transferred it to the Negev." This PA daily report shows the PA's rejection of Israelis living and developing land anywhere in Israel. For years, Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the PA as policy often defines all of Israel as "Palestine" or "occupied Palestine."  The following is the official PA daily's report calling Israeli construction in the Negev "a settlement": "The order given by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to freeze construction in West Bank settlements may pave the way to a thaw in the frozen peace process, but it does not mean that Israel has acceded to Palestinian, Arab, or international demands. Quite the opposite. It constitutes a settlement trick... At the same time the so-called 'Ministerial Committee for Legislation' approved the outlines of the 'Prawer Law' that will bring about the expropriation of hundreds of thousands of acres and the uprooting of 35,000 Arab citizens from their homes and lands in the Negev. The significance is that the Netanyahu government has not decided to freeze settlement, but has transferred it to the Negev. This will bring about an explosion and a confrontation with the Palestinians in the interior (i.e., Israeli Arabs in Israel). [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 8, 2013]

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