JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he would not take orders over Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem, rejected Sunday a US demand to halt plans to build more homes for Jews in the disputed area.
New friction with Washington over the project to build 20 apartments in a part of Jerusalem captured by Israel in a 1967 war could deepen the most serious rift in relations between the two allies in a decade. Israeli officials said the State Department had summoned Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, and told him plans for the construction approved this month by Jerusalem municipality should be suspended. “We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and buy (homes) anywhere in Jerusalem,” Netanyahu said, calling the city Israel’s united capital, a claim that is not recognized internationally.
“I can only imagine what would happen if someone would suggest Jews could not live in certain neighborhoods of New York, London, Paris or Rome. There would certainly be a great international outcry,” he told reporters at the weekly Cabinet meeting. “We cannot accept this edict in Jerusalem.” Netanyahu and President Barack Obama are already at loggerheads over the US leader’s call for Israel to freeze Jewish settlements on occupied land Palestinians want for a state.
Obama’s Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, due back in the region soon, and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak have been trying to work out a settlement deal that would include initial steps by Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel. But constraints on Jewish settlements in Jerusalem could put a heavy strain on Netanyahu’s coalition, in which the future of the holy city is a red-flag issue for Jewish religious and ultranationalist partners. Responding to Netanyahu’s comments, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Israeli leader had to realize that “settlements and peace are two parallels that do not go together.” Israel annexed East Jerusalem and declared all of the city its capital after the 1967 war. Palestinians say settlements on occupied land could deny them a viable state.
