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| By israelinsider staff and partners September 2, 2005 |
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| Israel seeks to extend its security barrier to encompass the city. (AP) |
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Israel has frozen plans to expand its largest "settlement," the Jerusalem suburb of Maaleh Adumim, and would only revive the project with U.S. consent, Vice Premier Ehud Olmert said in remarks published Friday.
The admission of the freeze comes just a day after Olmert, apparently in response to a campaign-launching visit by rival Benjamin Netanyahu to Maaleh Adumim, said that Israel will hold on to the suburb "forever." Now it is clear that the Sharon administration is hostage to an American veto.
The United States has urged Israel not to expand existing settlements, in line with Israeli commitments under the internationally backed "road map" peace plan.
The expansion of Maaleh Adumim, already a city of about 30,000, would have been particularly controversial because it would have cut off east Jerusalem, claimed by the Palestinians as a future capital, from the rest of the Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria, which the Palestinians covet and seek to convert to a Jew-free zone.
"The state of Israel has committed itself to freeze the building," Olmert told The Jerusalem Post, marking the first time a senior government official confirmed the plan has been suspended.
Olmert emphasized that Maaleh Adumim would eventually be expanded. Israel wants to build some 3,650 apartments under the so-called E-1 plan. The construction would isolate east Jerusalem, and make it virtually impossible for the Palestinians to establish their capital there. Israel has said it will never relinquish the city's eastern sector, captured from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast War.
"It is absolutely clear that at a certain point in the future, Israel will recreate continuity between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim, and so there is not even an argument that in the end we will have to build the project," Olmert told the newspaper.
"When the conditions are ripe, we will raise the issue with the Americans again," he said. "It is clear we will not do anything behind the back of the Americans."
However, Olmert's admission of the freeze will strengthen claims of Netanyahu that Sharon, behind the back of the Israeli voter and contrary to claims of ensuring the capital's contiguity, is prepared to divide Jerusalem.
The AP contributed to this report.
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