Building more units, stoking up more conflicts

The EU Presidency issued a declaration on the Israeli decision to issue tenders for the construction of 1,000 housing units in Israeli settlements on the West Bank of the Jordan or what should clearly be Palestinian land.

Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, speaking as President of the Council of Ministers of the European Union, expressed his dismay at the tenders issued by the Israeli Ministry of Housing for the construction of houses and the lease of land in several settlements in the occupied West Bank.

This is the second time this month that expansion of Israeli settlement activity was endorsed by the Israeli government. Minister Bot reiterated that all settlement activity is to be frozen, including natural growth of settlements, as stipulated in the 'roadmap' to Middle East peace which everyone believes has long been dead and buried in an unmarked grave.

In addition, Minister Bot expressed his grave concern that, particularly at a time that there appear to be prospects of making early progress in the Middle East peace process, the current increase of settlement activity in the West Bank will not be conducive to a climate of confidence required to achieve such progress.

Minister Bot is right but his remarks, probably already classified as anti-Semitic by the religious fanatics who rule in Israel, are unlikely to coax the protagonists into behaving more like adults than kids.

At the time of writing this piece the Israeli government was close to collapse as the Likud Party opposed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's efforts to launch a coalition government with the Labour Party.

Meanwhile the Palestinian side is in no better shape. Yasser Arafat, after months of external and more recently internal pressure to root out corruption, seems to be ready to act. It would be a historic achievement indeed if he does actually act to rid his state of corruption.

But as St Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153) is reputed to have claimed: "Hell is full of good intentions or desires". Judging by the yardstick of what many Arab governments have achieved in the past when they embarked on 'reform' the world awaits the final outcome of this process with some anxiety and cynicism.

We sincerely augur that Mr Arafat achieves these goals and that Palestinian reform really takes off. In the meantime, one also hopes that the Israelis also manage to sort themselves out. Things are already difficult in the Middle East as they are and they are certainly not made any better by political weakness and instability in any of the two main interlocutors' governments.