Building freeze protesters gather in Jerusalem

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Thousands of West Bank settlers and their supporters converged on Jerusalem to protest the government’s serious consideration of renewing the settlement construction freeze.

The protesters demonstrated Sunday outside the Prime Minister’s Office carrying signs reading "We will not give up this land" and "Build houses, plant trees, our answer to the freeze."

Municipal offices in communities across the West Bank went on strike Sunday, and many schools were closed. The communities bused in residents, many of them students, for the protest.

"He who says he is looking out for Israel’s security and at the same time offering to return to the 1967 borders is basically telling Israel to return to the borders which Abba Eban called the Auschwitz borders," National Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau of the Yisrael Beiteinu Party told the demonstrators. "Such a demand should be rejected."

Landau left the weekly Cabinet meeting to address the protesters. 

Teenage demonstrators blocked Highway 1, the entrance to Jerusalem, on Sunday afternoon. Police removed the protesters, arresting two.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly is poised to freeze construction in the settlements, excluding eastern Jerusalem, for an additional 90 days following a 10-month freeze that ended on Sept. 26.

The United States reportedly has offered Israel incentives to agree to the additional freeze. They include a gift of an additional 20 F-35 stealth fighter jets, in addition to the 20 Israel already has committed to buy at a cost of $3 billion, a promise to veto anti-Israel motions in international bodies and security guarantees.

Also Sunday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in Cairo for a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, said the PA would not come back to peace talks with Israel unless a freeze on settlement construction includes eastern Jerusalem.