While the Shomron outposts of P’nei Shilo and Oz Yonatan were removed by the IDF overnight, Interior Minister Eli Yishai announced that construction in communities throughout Yehuda and Shomron would continue based on understandings between Jerusalem and the previous American administration.

While his statements elicited opposing statements from the political left-wing, Yishai stated he believes such a move would not place Israel on a collision course with the United States.

In the meantime, the youths who built the makeshift hut structures, the outposts that were assembled in response to US President Barak Obama’s Cairo address, vow to rebuild them once again, increasingly determined to defy America’s demands to halt all construction in Yehuda and Shomron.

Adding his opinion to the construction controversy was attorney Dov Weisglass, who served as a senior emissary to Washington during the first administration of Ariel Sharon, in 2001.

Weisglass, who met regularly with US officials, including Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice, stated the American administration had no objections to continued construction within the existing boundaries of communities, explaining “as high and deep as you wish” on existing plots of land. Weisglass added America was opposed to the purchase of additional Arab lands and any attempt at expanding the boundaries of existing communities.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)