Migrants boost Jewish settler numbers in West Bank

Israelis moving to the West Bank accounted for more than a third of settler population growth in recent years, government statistics show, undercutting Israel's argument that it is continuing settlement construction only to accommodate growing families already living there.

The so-called "natural growth" rationale for building on land the Palestinians claim for a future state has vaulted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into an unusually vocal and public clash with the Obama administration, which has come out strong against continued settlement expansion.

Settlement construction had been expected to be the focus of a meeting in Paris on Thursday between Netanyahu and America's top Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, a longtime settlement critic. But the meeting was abruptly postponed, and an Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said Israel sought more time to iron out differences with the U.S. administration, including over settlements.

Opponents say the government invokes "natural growth" as a cover to build thousands of houses across the West Bank, including hundreds that Palestinian laborers are building in Maaleh Adumim, a major settlement outside Jerusalem.

"The Israelis are playing a game of deception by what they call natural growth," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Data from Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics supports that argument, showing that in 2007, 36 percent of all new settlers had moved from Israel or abroad.

More recent data, including for the period since Netanyahu's government took office in March, is not yet available, but there are few reasons to think Israel has reversed the trend, said Hagit Ofran, a settlement expert for Peace Now, a settlement watchdog group.

Amid the influx of people drawn to cheaper housing in settlements, construction has continued - more than 5,500 new apartments have been completed over the past three years in the West Bank, bureau figures show.

Settlements are a major obstacle to peacemaking because Israel has used them to extend its de facto boundaries into the West Bank and to cement its claim on east Jerusalem. The Palestinians claim both territories, captured by Israel in 1967, for a future state, along with the Gaza Strip, and want the Jewish construction there to stop.

Under the 2003 U.S.-backed road map peace plan, Israel promised to halt all settlement construction, including for natural growth. But the building has gone on.

Israel argues that growing families need bigger apartments and that grown children, raising their own families, should be allowed to live near their parents.

Jerusalem-born Yaffa Shkibai, who has lived in Maaleh Adumim for 26 of her 50 years, has bought apartments for each of her four children here.

"They should continue building and not be afraid of the U.S.," she said. "If we bend, they'll kick us out of here."

The United States is among those monitoring settlement activity. The U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem said its officials regularly visit settlements and take photographs. A foreman at one construction project in Maaleh Adumim said Monday that U.S. officials had been there recently, walking around and taking pictures.

Last week, Netanyahu grudgingly yielded to President Barack Obama's demand that Israel endorse Palestinian independence, albeit shackled by a series of conditions. But he flatly resisted Obama's pressure for a settlement freeze.

"We have no intention of building new settlements or of expropriating additional land for existing settlements," Netanyahu said in a major policy speech last week. "But there is a need to enable the residents to live normal lives, to allow mothers and fathers to raise their children like families elsewhere."

Netanyahu pointedly dropped the politically charged "natural growth" phrase for "normal lives."

But the linguistic slight of hand doesn't mask the fact that migration - and not just the growth of families - is a major factor in settler population growth.

Migration from Israel and abroad accounted for 5,300 of the 14,500 new settlers in 2007, the last year for which bureau data are available.

And 2007 wasn't a random blip. Migration accounted for between a third and half of the population growth in each year between 1999 and 2007, save 2005, when numbers were skewed by Israel's withdrawal of 8,500 settlers from the Gaza Strip.

Nearly 300,000 Israelis currently live in the West Bank and 180,000 in east Jerusalem, whose annexation by Israel in 1967 is not internationally recognized. That's more than double from 116,300 at the end of 1993, the year Israel and the Palestinians signed their landmark accord.

Between 2006 and 2008 - roughly the tenure of the previous government - Israel completed building 5,503 apartments in the West Bank and began building 5,125, the statistics bureau said.

Maaleh Adumim, home to more than 35,000 settlers, continues to be one of the biggest magnets for migrants.

At the settlement's northeastern edge, overlooking the Judean desert, rumbling front-end loaders were busy scooping up mounds of dirt and stones at a new neighborhood that has been going up for the past 2 1/2 years. Bricks, steel rods and coils of rubber tubing were piled up outside the unfinished homes, which Palestinian laborers were building.

Yossi Navon, the foreman who spoke of the Embassy personnel, said apartments were going for about half of what a comparable apartment in Jerusalem would fetch.

"I think Bibi said it right," Navon said, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname. "Natural growth has to continue."

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Associated Press writer Joseph Marks contributed to this report.