Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to sign an agreement with the United States this week regarding settlement activity in the West Bank, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Sunday night, according to dpa. Netanyahu on Sunday showed his cabinet to ministers the agreement, to be signed during the visit Thursday in Israel of George Mitchell, US special envoy to the Middle East. Netanyahu would not refer to the "freeze" of construction or any "moratorium" in settlement activity in the West Bank and would instead accept "reducing the scale of construction," Haaretz reported. The Israeli response to international pressure to stop settlement construction in the West Bank would, however, be signed after Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak gave the green light Sunday to the construction of 500 new apartments in the West Bank. The Israeli Defence Ministry Sunday night was to authorize the building of 500 new housing units in six of the biggest settlements in the West Bank ahead the visit of Mitchell to Israel. "The settlement building authorizations will be regretted for generations," said Yariv Oppenheimer, secretary general of the Israeli organization Peace Now. "The Israeli government prefers to bend to the demands of the Yesha Council, thus endangering the national interests of the state of Israel, destroying relations with the international community and burying chances for reaching a two-state solution. Likud Knesset member Danny Danon said: "We were chosen to lead, to say no to a Palestinian state and no to a West Bank settlement freeze." Israel's reported intention to temporarily suspend construction in West Bank settlements is only a "strategic pause," Interior Minister Eli Yishai of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party said Sunday morning. US President Barack Obama has demanded that Israel freeze all construction in West Bank settlements. Netanyahu replied that while Israel would not build any new settlements, it would continue with construction in existing ones to accommodate population expansion, so-called "natural growth." Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has conditioned a restart of suspended peace talks on a total Israeli settlement construction halt.
