Israel okays 1,600 settler homes for East Jerusalem
Ultra-Orthodox Jews walk through Ramat Shlomo, a religious Jewish settlement in an area of the occupied West Bank Israel annexed to Jerusalem, March 17, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Amir Cohen
JERUSALEM |
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's interior minister has given final approval for a plan to build 1,600 settler homes in East Jerusalem, a project whose announcement last year during a visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden caused a diplomatic rift with Washington.
The official announcement Thursday of the go-ahead from Interior Minister Eli Yishai could weigh on U.S.-led efforts to dissuade the Palestinians from seeking United Nations endorsement of statehood in the absence of peace talks they suspended over Israeli settlement construction.
Nabil Abu Rdainah, spokesman for the Palestinian presidency, called on the United States, the European Union and other sponsors of the Middle East peace process to pressure the Israeli government to halt the settlement plans.
Initial approval for the 1,600 housing units in Ramat Shlomo, a religious Jewish settlement in an area of the West Bank annexed to Jerusalem by Israel, was given in March 2010, casting a shadow on Biden's visit while highlighting U.S.-Israeli differences over such construction.
Biden condemned the Israeli plan at the time and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in unusually blunt remarks, called it an insult. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced regret for the timing of that announcement but rejected any curbs on settlement in and around Jerusalem.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem as capital of the state they hope to found in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel deems all of Jerusalem its capital -- a status not recognized abroad. Israel quit Gaza in 2005 but disputes Palestinian claim on all of the West Bank.
Israel has said building would not begin for several years and a housing ministry spokesman gave no timeline for the project's implementation, saying there were "significant planning procedures" still pending.
The country is currently gripped by escalating protests for cheaper housing, raising speculation that some settlement projects could be sped up.
Peace Now, an anti-settlement Israeli advocacy group, responded to Yishai's move by issuing a statement accusing the government of "cynically using the current housing crisis in Israel to promote construction in the settlements."
Some 500,000 Jews live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in a 1967 war. There are about 2.5 million Palestinians in the same territory.
(Writing by Jeffrey Heller, editing by Sitaraman Shankar)
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The one thing that is most repugnant to all Arabs, is the building of more Israeli homes on lands captured in the ’67 war, like the East Bank. And Israel just loves to rub salt in that wound!
“The United States will undoubtedly veto any resolution, and that will further isolate both Israel and Washington”. (NY Times 7 Aug))
WHY? Why must the US veto a UN resolution to recognize a Palestinian state. America is NOT joined at the hip with Israel! Only the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is joined at the hip – not with America – but with Congress. That unholy alliance is becoming one of the greatest potential threats to American democracy – the undue power of a pressure group that represents but a fraction of one per cent of the American electorate yet has a hugely disproportionate influence in both Houses.
Of course, there should be a Palestinian state. There have been Arabs in that region as a continuous majority indigenous people for over a thousand years. House members travelling to Israel courtesy of AIPAC can verify this simple fact very easily – even taking into account the constant propaganda from the Israeli foreign ministry, and, of course, their hosts.
They can also verify the illegality of the continuing settlement of Israelis on Palestinian land in the West Bank and the eviction of Arabs in East Jerusalem to now make way for 1,600 settler homes. These continue to be serious threats to peace in the Middle East and the whole region and are in contempt of the will of the United Nations and of the US and the EU.
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