Israel on Wednesday announced its intention to speed up the construction of about 2,000 new homes in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem following the recognition of Palestine as a member of the UNESCO-- the U.N. Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement that the new homes would be built in East Jerusalem and the West Bank settlements of Efrat and Ma'ale Adumim, adding: "All of the mentioned areas are ones that would remain in Israeli control under any future peace agreement."
The Israeli government also temporarily freezed the transfer of tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, pending a final decision on whether to impose a long-term freeze on the transfer of funds.
Meanwhile, Nabil Abu Rudeina, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said Israel's announcement on expediting settlement construction in West Bank and East Jerusalem implied that the Jewish nation had decided "to speed up the destruction of the peace process."
The developments come two days after UNESCO's General Conference voted to admit Palestine as a member-state in a move expected to boost the Palestinian campaign for international recognition of statehood. While 107 members supported the measure, 14 others, including the U.S. and Israel, opposed and 52 members abstained from voting.
The U.S. has since announced suspension of its funding to the UNESCO, following its earlier warnings that the U.N. cultural agency risked losing tens of millions of dollars in U.S. funding if it granted membership to Palestine before a peace deal emerged from Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
The U.S. is the biggest contributor to UNESCO, accounting for 22 per cent of its $653-million budget. Current U.S. laws allow the cutting of funds to the U.N. or any of its agencies if they grant full membership as "a state to any organization or group that does not have the internationally recognized attributes of statehood."
Also, the Palestine Authority had made a formal request with U.N. Security Council (UNSC) in September to grant full membership for a Palestine state with pre-1967 borders and East Jerusalem as its capital, ignoring objections from Israel and the U.S. The pre-1967 borders refers to boundaries before Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights from Jordan, Egypt and Syria respectively in the 1967 Six-Day War.
The U.S. Congress has since frozen $200 million worth of aid to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. The Congress decision came despite the opposition of the Obama administration. The Palestinians have said that the Congress decision was a "great disappointment."
Although the United States has indicated that it will veto the measure at the UNSC, the Palestinians stand to gain the status of a "non-member state" if it succeeds in securing a simple majority of the U.N. General Assembly, where the U.S. has no veto power. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) currently has an observer status at the U.N.
Palestinians believe that a full U.N. membership would allow them to take Israel to the International Criminal Court and other international forums over issues like building settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Currently, the U.S.-initiated negotiations aimed at ending the Middle East conflict are deadlocked over Israel's refusal to extend a construction freeze in the West Bank after its expiry on September 26, 2010. Israel has since approved several plans to build new settler homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, ignoring strong objections from the international community.
Israel has settled about 500,000 Jews in more than 100 settlements built in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the 1967 Six-Day War. However, the Israeli annexation of the captured area is not recognized by the international community, which considers building settlements in the occupied land as illegal.
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June 12, 2026 17:14 ET Major central bank action was the focus this week in economic news. The European Central Bank became the first major central bank to move in response to the rising inflationary pressures in the backdrop of the conflict in the Middle East. In North America, the U.S. inflation and trade data as well as Canada’s central bank decision gained attention. The Chinese trade data was the main news in Asia.