U.S. Doesn’t Seek Freeze on Settlements, Israel Says : Occupied lands: Baker’s objection to the Jewish housing projects is only a temporary, tactical stance, officials insist.

Israel’s government does not interpret Secretary of State James A. Baker III’s objection to settlements on occupied lands as a call for a definite freeze, Israeli officials say.

Instead, they describe Baker as softly urging Israel to desist temporarily, for tactical motives, to get peace talks under way.

“We do not feel that he is saying stop forever. Rather, he is saying that . . . it’s not a good idea right now,” said a Foreign Ministry official who has been deeply involved in the three visits of Baker to Israel during the last seven weeks.

U.S. officials in Baker’s entourage said he urged Israel to stop the construction of settlements as a confidence-building measure.

A recent spate of settlement construction appears to indicate that the government is taking Baker’s approach as a green light. Like clockwork, an expected return visit by Baker was the cue for Israeli ultranationalists to set up another settlement under the cover of night Monday and into Tuesday.

The government shrugged. “This is a marginal issue,” said spokesman Yossi Olmert.

The latest settlement was advertised as an expansion of an existing community, but the intent was not so much to build as to inform: Proponents say the settlements are meant to give backbone to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s stand against U.S. pressure to give up land in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. By doing so, according to Washington’s formula, Israel would win peace with its Arab neighbors and the Palestinians.

“We are trying to help Shamir stand firm in the storms that are to come,” said Noam Arnon, a spokesman for Gush Emunim, a militant settler movement.

Late Monday, Gush Emunim began to deliver seven trailer homes to a site near the Talmon settlement and claimed they were setting up a suburb, not a new colony. They trucked the trailers to the West Bank before news broke that Baker had postponed his trip to Israel from Tuesday to Thursday.

In any case, peace activists who arrived to protest insisted that the settlers were trying to undermine Baker’s peace effort, and a scuffle broke out. Soldiers closed off the hilly zone to reporters.

Although the activity at Talmon and the recent establishment of another settlement at a place called Revava were timed to coincide with Baker’s visits, the expansion is part of plans put in place more than a year ago by the Shamir government after it shed its ruling partnership with the dovish Labor Party.

Shamir approved a new settlement in the Gaza Strip last May, when he headed a provisional minority government led by his Likud Party. He later signed right-wing and religious parties into a majority coalition; its platform pledged to expand settlements.

Shortly thereafter, several settlements expanded their boundaries. Appendages of mobile homes were tacked onto hilltops near existing settlements. Housing Minister Ariel Sharon began to send out mobile homes to lure Soviet immigrants to the West Bank and promised to construct 13,000 homes on the disputed land. Whenever one of these moves came to light, the State Department issued a standard statement of objection; settlements are an “obstacle to peace,” the Bush Administration says.

Sharon, a champion of settlement, insisted Tuesday that the Americans accept Israel’s right and need to continue moving into the West Bank and Gaza. He told state radio that there was “no reason for conflict between the Americans and Israel because we told them that settlements are essential for our national security.”