Yesha Council Chairman Quoted

Maskiot received government permission to reopen its doors to some two dozen families expelled from Gush Katif. That bothers Washington immensely.

And the NYTimes saw fit to include a reaction from Dany Dayan:-

According to Peace Now, an Israeli advocacy group that tracks settlement growth, there are over 100 established settlements and about 100 less formal outposts in the West Bank.

Settler leaders and government officials say that four illegal outposts have already been quietly removed but they refuse to go into details, saying that publicity limits the possibility of compromise.

Dani Dayan, chairman of the Yesha Council, an umbrella group representing the settlers, said in a telephone interview that there was “no direct connection” between the permission for the new homes and the removal of outposts, though he said that the settlers’ unilateral removal of four outposts “may have created a positive atmosphere.”

And while on the subject of State Dept. peeving, have you read this?

Senior officials in the U.S. State Department, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have repeatedly complained to Israel recently over relatively minor Palestinian issues that it would have ignored until a few months ago, Israeli officials say.

Complaints about settlement construction or army operations that kill Palestinian civilians have always been the norm. But Israeli officials are worried by the State Department's new tendency to intervene in a much broader range of issues.

One such case occurred two weeks ago, when the daughter of Palestinian parliamentarian Hanan Ashrawi sought to visit Israel...She therefore asked the State Department to intervene...Another case was Washington's demand that 10 Gazan Fulbright scholars be allowed to enter Israel for visa interviews at the U.S. consulate in East Jerusalem. However, Israel refused, saying they had been blacklisted for security reasons.

Rice personally intervened. In addition, an Israeli official said, the consulate leaked the story to the New York Times to embarrass Israel.

...Yet another case involved an eviction order issued to an East Jerusalem family over nonpayment of rent. Officials from the U.S. consulate visited the family and sent a telegram to Washington, and the State Department demanded that Israel prevent the eviction. The stunned Israelis responded that the eviction had been upheld by the High Court of Justice. Moreover, they said, this was an internal affair.

A senior Israeli official said that the person behind this growing American criticism is the U.S. consul in Jerusalem, Jacob Wallace [correct spelling Walles]. "Every week, he receives dozens of complaints from Palestinians and transfers them to Washington without examination," the official said. "He's really inflaming the atmosphere, causing public relations damage to Israel and even maydamage our relations with the U.S."

And I know of another case that Condi Rice personally demanded she be involved in regarding incidents between a Jewish farm and a nearby Arab family, asking for documentation and pictures.