Israel set to approve 1,100 new Jerusalem homes beyond the Green Line
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 11:49PM Potential construction in the Gilo neighborhood could possibly complicate U.S. efforts to bring Palestinians, Israel back to the negotiations table following a Palestinian statehood bid.
By Nir Hasson
Haaretz 27 Sept 2011
The Jerusalem District Planning Committee is set to approve 1,100 new housing units in Jerusalem's contested Gilo neighborhood on Tuesday, despite past U.S. objections concerning any construction that expanded Gilo further across the Green Line.
The plan was submitted by a subsidiary to the Jewish National Fund, and must pass 60 days in which the public may oppose it before being finally approved by Jerusalem's planning authorities.
Construction in Gilo photo by Daniel Bar-On
According to the proposal, 20 percent of the units in Jerusalem's southern neighborhood would be allotted for young couples, in compliance with a directive by Interior Minister Eli Yishai. The plan also includes the construction of a boardwalk, public structures, and a commercial center.
The announcement of the possible approval of construction in Gilo comes amid U.S. attempts to push Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiations table following a Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations. A key Palestinian condition ahead of resumed talks has been the complete freeze of all Israeli settlement construction.
In 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama, referring to a plan to expand construction in Gilo, said new Gilo homes could complicate efforts by his administration to relaunch peace talks and embitter the Palestinians.
Obama said at the time that additional settlement building doesn't make Israel safer. He said such moves make it harder to achieve peace in the region, and embitters the Palestinians in a dangerous way.
"The situation in the Middle East is very difficult, and I've said repeatedly and I'll say again, Israel's security is a vital national interest to the United States, and we will make sure they are secure," Obama said in the interview.
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U.S. condemns Israeli plan for new construction beyond Green Line
EU, Palestinians also denounce Israel's plan for 1,100 new homes in Jerusalem's contested Gilo neighborhood.
By Natasha Mozgovaya and News Agencies
27 Sept 2011
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday that Israel's decision to build 1,100 homes in Jerusalem's contested Gilo neighborhood, which lies beyond the Green Line, is counter-productive to reviving peace talks with the Palestinians.
"We believe that this morning's announcement by the government of Israel approving the construction of (1,100) housing units in East Jerusalem is counter-productive to our efforts to resume direct negotiations between the parties," Clinton told reporters at a news conference.
"As you know, we have long urged both sides to avoid any kind of action which could undermine trust, including, and perhaps most particularly, in Jerusalem, any action that could be viewed as provocative by either side," she added.
The European Union's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton also expressed disappointment with Israel's new plan to build homes in Gilo, saying they "should be reversed" since it undermines peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
Ashton told the EU parliament that she heard "with deep regret" that Israeli plans to build homes beyond the Green Line were continuing.
Speaking in Strasbourg, France, Ashton said the expansion of settlements "threatens the viability of an agreed two-state solution" between the two sides, as backed by the EU, the United States, Russia and the United Nations.
The Palestinians also condemned Israel's construction plans in Gilo.
"The Israeli Prime Minister claims to have no preconditions, but with this decision is putting concrete preconditions on the ground," the Palestinian Prime Minister's Office said in a statement.
"[Netanyahu] says there should be no unilateral steps, but there could be nothing more unilateral than a huge new round of settlement building on Palestinian land. The Israeli Prime Minister told the UN that he had come to tell the truth, but it is this decision which tells the truth.”
In New York on Monday, a divided UN Security Council met behind closed doors for its first discussion of last week's Palestinian application for full UN membership as a state.
The move seems certain to fail due to Israeli and U.S. opposition, despite substantial support by other governments.
A spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said it was up to the Security Council to put a stop to Israel's settlement policy "which is destroying the two-state solution and putting more obstacles in front of any effort to bring about a resumption of negotiations".
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Netanyahu rejects criticism of Jerusalem construction beyond green line
The prime minister denies that Gilo is a settlement, saying that all peace plans that have been considered by Israel and the Palestinians have placed Gilo in Israeli territory.
By Reuters
28 Sept 2011
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday rejected Western and Arab complaints that the planned construction of 1,100 new homes in Gilo on annexed land close to Jerusalem would complicate Middle East peace efforts.
"Gilo is not a settlement nor an outpost. It is a neighborhood in the very heart of Jerusalem about five minutes from the center of town," Netanyahu's spokesman Mark Regev said.
In every peace plan on the table in the past 18 years Gilo "stays part of Jerusalem and therefore this planning decision in no way contradicts" the current Israel government's desire for peace based on two states for the two peoples, he added.
Netanyahu also stressed the construction approval announced on Tuesday was a "preliminary planning decision."
The United States, Europe and Arab states said the announcement would complicate efforts to renew peace talks and defuse a crisis over a Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations.
Britain and the European Union called on Netanyahu to reverse the decision, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said new settlement building would be "counter-productive."
The U.S. State Department's number two and three officials for policy, Deputy Secretary Bill Burns and Under Secretary Wendy Sherman, discussed the issue with Israeli Ambassador to Washington Michael Oren on Tuesday, the State Department said.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters both meetings were in person but had been previously scheduled, so Oren was not "summoned" to the State Department -- a sign of diplomatic annoyance.
Nuland declined to say whether the United States had been given any advance warning of the construction decision.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas applied at the United Nations on Friday for full Palestinian membership, a move opposed by Israel and the United States, which urged him to resume negotiations with Israel to end the 63-year-old conflict.
Abbas has made a cessation of Israeli settlement building a condition for returning to talks which collapsed a year ago after Netanyahu refused to extend a 10-month partial moratorium on construction.
The so-called Quartet of international mediators -- the United States, the European Union, Russia and the UN -- has called for talks to begin within a month and urged both sides not to take unilateral actions that could block peacemaking.
Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said the new housing units Israel wants to build represented "1,100 'noes' to the Quartet statement" urging a resumption of negotiations.
Gilo is a suburban settlement that was erected on West Bank land captured by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War and annexed unilaterally as part of Jerusalem.
Palestinians want to create a state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and say settlements could deny them a viable country.
The Interior Ministry said a district planning committee approved the Gilo project and public objections to the proposal could be lodged within a 60-day review period, after which construction could begin.
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