JERUSAELM
Israeli Justice Minister and chief negotiator Tzippi Livni said Tuesday that settlement construction did not improve Israel's security.
"On the contrary, they cause damage for the future [Israeli] generations to come," she told Israeli radio.
Livni also criticized recent assertions by Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett that Israel should not make concessions to the Palestinians and that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was insoluble.
"Anyone who says there is no solution to the conflict and does not want make concessions is withholding from future generations a chance to live here in peace," she said.
She also asserted that political compromise with moderate parties of the region was part of Israel's overall security strategy.
Livni went on to say that the suspension of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks would make it difficult for Israel to join the international coalition being assembled to fight the Islamic State militant group in Iraq.
Israeli settlement building in Jerusalem and the West Bank swung into full gear recently after peace talks with Palestinian negotiators collapsed earlier this year.
Palestinian negotiators insist that Israeli settlement building on Arab land must stop before any comprehensive peace agreement can be reached.
International law views the West Bank and East Jerusalem as "occupied territories" and considers all Jewish settlement building on the land to be illegal.
About 500,000 Israelis currently live in more than one hundred Jewish-only settlements built since Israel seized the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967.
The Palestinians want both areas, along with the Gaza Strip, for an eventual independent state of Palestine.
By Anees Barghouthy
www.aa.com.tr/en
