Netanyahu's Gilo Provocation

A reader writes:

Having grown up in Gilo, I have to chime in on all these people expressing the fact that expanding Gilo is not a problem. My mom, who lived there for a while, responded to the article by saying, "When we were growing up, those weren't settlements. Those were just cheap houses."

Does that mean that it's acceptable to expand Gilo? No, it does not.

The problem is that each side has been so invested in its own perception of reality that they ignore the other side's feelings about the issue. In a normal run of events, it would be perfectly fine. But to ignore the context of what those settlements mean to Palestinians, the political reality behind the on-the-ground reality, is peevish. It's naive to pretend that it's fine.

There are other places to build cheap houses. Israel is a small country, but it's far from being fully developed. What is the necessity to build the houses there?

To stick it to the Palestinian enemy; and to stick it to the Americans and anyone else who objects; and to maintain a policy of settling as much Palestinian land as possible before any negotiations start (which, if Netanyahu gets his way, is never). Gilo, by the way, is past the 1967 border.