"Stop Swiping, Swiper!"

Maybe we all need to use that Dora the Explorer line (correction: "Swiper, No Swiping!") to childishly encourage our alleged ally Israel to come to her senses before it's too late, once again:

JERUSALEM — Israel announced plans on Tuesday for 1,100 new housing units in an area of South Jerusalem outside Israel’s pre-1967 boundaries. The move reflects Israel’s continued rejection of Palestinian demands for a halt in settlement construction as a condition for peace talks.

The Palestinian leadership immediately condemned the plan.

The two sides are under international pressure to resume peace negotiations, on the heels of the Palestinians’ contentious bid for membership as a state in the United Nations.

Over the last 18 months, Israel has repeatedly made awkwardly timed announcements of building plans in disputed and occupied areas. The Palestinians walked out of nascent peace talks a year ago after a 10-month Israeli moratorium on settlement construction expired.

The prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has refused to renew the moratorium, saying that the last time, the Palestinians waited nine months before sitting down to negotiate with Israel. Mr. Netanyahu says he wants immediate, direct talks with no preconditions.

“It is a pretext they use again and again,” he said of the Palestinian insistence on a moratorium, in an interview published in The Jerusalem Post on Monday. “I think a lot of people see it as a ruse to avoid direct negotiations.”

Mr. Netanyahu faces strong opposition in his governing coalition to any additional freeze on construction.
...
A spokeswoman for Israel’s Interior Ministry said that the plan for new housing in Gilo, in south Jerusalem bordering on the West Bank, was being posted for public comment for 60 days, a necessary step before final approval. She said the timing was driven by the lengthy approval process, and not by any political agenda. Construction is not likely to begin before 2013.

The Gilo area was conquered from Jordan in the 1967 war, along with East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and Israel later annexed it to the city of Jerusalem, a step that has never been recognized internationally.

You risk big, every now and then, you lose big too...
Don't Forget It, Eh?

In other news:

Separately, the Israeli government said on Tuesday that an Israeli military court had released Al Jazeera’s Afghanistan bureau chief from jail after convicting him of conspiracy on behalf of Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza. The journalist — Samer Allawi, 45, a Palestinian based in Pakistan — was arrested Aug. 9 at a border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan.

Under the terms of a plea agreement, he was fined and sentenced to time served plus three years, which the court suspended. He was released on Monday.

The Israeli government said in a statement that Mr. Allawi had agreed to use his position at the network to help advance Hamas’s goals.

Al Jazeera issued a statement saying that it strongly denied the “malicious accusations” made against Mr. Allawi, and that his release was a clear indication that they were baseless.

The situation there reminds me so much of the speech in this film, given by Father Doran in the Church before he kicks them all out and locks the doors. Something about, "For what? Land? Would you kill for it?"

Excellent movie. The brogues are thick, so you might have to rewind if you're unfamiliar with the language, but well well worth watching...