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Foreign construction workers at the Har Homa building site (Flash90)
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| By Israel Insider staff December 8, 2007 |
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Israeli plans to add more than 307 new homes in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa are not helpful, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice complained Friday.
"We're in a time when the goal is to build maximum confidence between the parties and this doesn't help to build confidence," Rice lectured, speaking to reporters after a meeting with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni during the NATO meeting in Brussels.
She did not discuss the great confidence engendered by the Palestinian Legislative Council's passage in a first reading of legislation to declare discussion of concessions in Jerusalem to be equivalent to high treason and justification for the death penalty. Nor did she speak about the confidence built by the PA harboring in "protective custody" a policeman involved in the murder of an Israeli citizen in a drive-by shooting two weeks ago.
"There should not be anything which might prejudge final-status negotiations," Rice said. "It's even more important now that we are on the eve of the beginning of the negotiations. I made that position clear," she added.
But government spokesman Mark Regev said Israel explained to the US that the building tenders were the legacy of past governments and were in any case part of thickly-populated areas that Israel had no intention of giving up. "In this current decision to build, neither the Prime Minister's Office nor the Defense Ministry was involved in the decision-making process," Regev said. "We're talking about Jerusalem, Israel's capital, and Israeli law applies, and this was done through the regular, routine procedures."
Housing Minister Ze'ev Boim said Saturday that there is no reason for Israel to hold up a plan to build the new unites. "Secretary of State Rice should be blessed for her efforts in the relaunching of the peace process," Boim said, "but it cannot be that on every occasion this will be tied together with the cessation of construction in Jerusalem."
"The Har Homa neighborhood is situated within Jerusalem's municipal borders where Israeli law applies," Boim added. "Therefore, there is nothing preventing the construction there, just as there is nothing preventing construction anywhere else in Israel." The new housing would expand the neighborhood of about 4,000 Israeli residents.
Palestinian officials appealed to the US to block the project. Palestinian senior negotiator Saeb Erekat described the housing starts as 307 "raised fists" against the peace process.
"We loudly ask the U.S. administration to act as the judge and compel Israel to implement its commitments which the Road Map plan specified," Erekat told Voice of Palestine radio. "If Israel went on, this will destroy all the efforts that aim at launching a meaningful peace process leading to ending the Israeli occupation which started in the 1967," he added.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was asked Thursday whether he considered Israel's decision a violation to be a violation of the roadmap and commitments made at the Annapolis peace conference.
"The United Nations' position on the illegality of settlements is well known," Ban said. "These new tenders for 300 new homes in east Jerusalem so soon after this Annapolis Middle East peace conference, I think, is not helpful. I will be discussing this matter with my Quartet partners."
Ban said he would make his viewpoint clear: "Asking them to explain is not enough," he said. "The Americans must pressure the Israeli government to stop settlement activities."
Har Homa is considered by Israeli to be part of the thickly settled parts of Jerusalem that would not be handed to Palestinians in any conceivable compromise, presuming of course that Palestinians would defy death to make a compromise.
Jewish settlers celebrate Hannuka with 8 new outposts
Meanwhile, Israeli settlements activists announced plans to settle eight more hilltops Sunday, one for each day of the Jewish festival of Hannuka. Taking advantage of the school holiday, various activist groups have come together to carry out the simultaneous erection of outposts on what are hoped to be future communities. According to a report in Israel National News, the plans are being coordinated between the Land of Israel Faithful, Youth for Eretz Yisrael, Women in Green and the local grassroots action committees.
"At a time when internal and external enemies are trying to choke us behind fences and walls, daring to tell us that we are not allowed to expand and build in our own land, the most necessary answer is to defy those anti-Semitic decrees by settling the hills of Judea and Samaria," a communique issued by the activists reads. "That is the best way we can show the world that the Jewish people will not agree to give up its land."
During the Festival of Sukkot in October, activists ascended five hilltops in Judea and Samaria with the goal of permanently settling them. Despite repeated forced evictions, two of the five outposts have held out and are being inhabited by pioneering Jewish families and youth. The remaining three, which security forces managed to evacuate, will be among the sites resettled Sunday.
Among the new sites to be settled is the so-called E1 area between the city of Maaleh Adumim and Jerusalem, which the Israeli government has expressed its intention of retaining in any future arrangement. "E1 (also called Mevaseret Adumim) is the area that was supposed to connect Maaleh Adumim to Jerusalem. Israel planned to build Jewish homes there to ensure Jewish continuity between Maaleh Adumim and Jerusalem, but the current government caved into American pressure and stopped those plans," activists say. "They do not let the Jews build there because E1 is meant to be the area that will give the Arabs continuity for their planned Palestinian State. And thus, if we want to prevent the creation of a Palestinian State we must make sure to settle E1 -- and fast." |
Housing Minister Ze'ev Boim said Saturday that nothing should prevent Israel from following through on a plan to build 300 housing units in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa, a plan which U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said could jeopardize peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
"Secretary of State Rice should be blessed for her efforts in the relaunching of the peace process," Boim said, "but it cannot be that on every occasion this [peace process] will be tied together with the cessation of construction in Jerusalem."
"The Har Homa neighborhood is situated within Jerusalem's municipal borders where Israeli law applies," Boim added. "Therefore, there is nothing preventing the construction there, just as there is nothing preventing construction anywhere else in Israel."
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Meanwhile Saturday, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat appealed to the United States to compel Israel to halt the expansion of settlements in the West Bank as dictated by the road map peace plan.
"We loudly ask the U.S. administration to act as the judge and compel Israel to implement its commitments which the Road Map plan specified," Erekat told Voice of Palestine radio.
The first phase of the road map calls on Israel to freeze settlement activities and the natural growth of the settlements.
Erekat pointed out that the tender for the Har Homa construction came about one week after the end of a U.S.-hosted conference in Annapolis, Maryland, which set December 12 as the date for Israel and the PA to start negotiating a lasting solution.
"If Israel went on, this will destroy all the efforts that aim at launching a meaningful peace process leading to ending the Israeli occupation which started in the 1967," Erekat added.
On Friday, Rice warned Israel that the construction plan threatened U.S.-backed efforts to achieve peace with the Palestinians.
"We are in a time when the goal is to build maximum confidence with the parties and this doesn't help to build confidence," she said in rare U.S. criticism of Israel.
"There should not be anything which might prejudge final-status negotiations," Rice said after talks with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on the sidelines of a NATO meeting of foreign ministers.
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