The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Jerusalem

The construction of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank has accelerated even as Israel and the Palestinians work to relaunch the Middle East peace process, a settler watchdog said on Wednesday.

The construction of settlements "puts the chances of success at the Annapolis meeting in grave danger," Yariv Oppenheimer, secretary general of the Israeli Peace Now group told AFP. "If it continues like this we will soon have a settler state instead of a Palestinian state" in the West Bank, he said.

In a report covering the period from may to October, Peace Now said construction is underway in 88 settlements, ranging from single buildings to the development of hundreds of housing units.

Citing government statistics published in June, the group said the number of settlers in the West Bank has reached 267,500, an annual growth of 5.8 percent, versus 1.8 percent growth within Israel during the same period. "This means that the growth of settlements is much more than the 'natural growth' and includes massive migration of settlers to the West Bank," the report said. But Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry, called the numbers "problematic" and insisted that the growth reflects the higher birth rates of settlers, who tend to be ultra-Orthodox Jews.