The disappearing Palestinian state

Here's a Ha'aretz report on the issuing of tenders for the construction of still more settler houses in the occupied West Bank.

The government is planning to build 164 new homes in three settlements in the West Bank, despite an obligation under a U.S.-backed peace road map to halt such construction on land Palestinians seek for a state.....

The latest tender follows one published on September 4 to build 690 new homes in the settlements of Maaleh Adumim and Beitar Ilit, the largest number of housing bids for settlement building offered since Prime Minister Ehud Olmert took office in May.

I remember Jonathan Freedland arguing in the Guardian that Israel's defeat in Lebanon meant that it will try that much harder to retain large swathes of the West Bank. Something like that anyway. Well, the 690 new settler houses in the article were ok'd by Olmert and Peretz before the defeat in Lebanon.