The government of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced wide-ranging increases in settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem just as talks between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) commenced. This latest wave of settlement construction and planning advancements represents not only opportunistic measures by the Netanyahu government to reward coalition partners and others intent upon pre-empting the possibility of Palestinian sovereignty west of the Jordan River.  These actions also offer fresh evidence of Israel’s single-minded intent to settle anywhere and everywhere in the territories it has controlled for almost half a century in a manner unencumbered, and in some respects encouraged, by an uncertain diplomatic engagement sponsored by Washington.