MIDDLE EAST: Anti-settlement group Peace Now says Israel plans to start buliding more than 2,000 housing units in East Jerusalem

Record ID: 398718

  • Title: MIDDLE EAST: Anti-settlement group Peace Now says Israel plans to start buliding more than 2,000 housing units in East Jerusalem
  • Date: 2nd October 2014
  • Summary: GIVAT HAMATOS SETTLEMENT, JERUSALEM (OCTOBER 2, 2014) (REUTERS) VIEW OF JERUSALEM BUILDINGS/ PAN TO GIVAT HAMATOS SETTLEMENT SETTLEMENT SIGN GV'S OF SETTLEMENT VARIOUS OF MAN WALKING GV'S OF SETTLEMENT TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (OCTOBER 2, 2014) (REUTERS) YARIV OPENHEIMER OF PEACE NOW ANTI SETTLEMENT GROUP SEATED IN OFFICE OPENHEIMER MARKING GIVAT HAMATOS SETTLEMENT ON A MAP (S
  • Embargoed: 17th October 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Jerusalem, Israel
  • City:
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: General,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAAT0HAA5T3GGZFHQG1CLKIELMQ
  • Story Text: Anti-settlement group Peace Now reported on Wednesday (October 1) that Israel had moved forward plans for settlements in East Jerusalem hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met U.S. President Barak Obama in Washington and said he remained committed to a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians.
    Peace Now said that earlier in the month Israel had approved 2,610 housing units in Givat HaMatos settlement, or 'Airplane Hill', named for the crash site of an airforce plane shot down during the Six Day War in 1967 and lies on the southern fringes of Jerusalem's city limits.
    On Thursday (October 2) Yariv Openheimer of Peace Now questioned Netanyahu's commitment to the two-state solution in light of what he said was an Israeli policy of settlement expansion in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
    "When Netanyahu is saying that he is in favour of a two-state solution he needs to explain how can he say it while at the same time he continues to approve settlement expansion and expansion of settlements in East Jerusalem. This is not working together, either you are supporting the two-state solution and then you want to see negotiations and a freeze of settlements activity, or you are in favour of a one-state solution and then continue to build settlements and actually make it impossible to disconnect between Israelis and Palestinians," Openheimer told Reuters.
    Netanyahu on Wednesday reiterated his support for the two-state solution but did not offer any path toward restarting negotiations.
    Instead, he suggested there was a need to "think outside the box" and recruit moderate Arab states to advance peace in the region, though he offered no specifics. Palestinians have dismissed this approach as a bid to circumvent direct talks.
    Within hours of the talks, both the White House and State Department blasted Israel's housing decision to move forward with the settler project slated for construction since 2012.
    White House spokesman Josh Earnest declined to speculate whether disclosure of the settlement plan was timed for Netanyahu's Washington visit. Openheimer said it was coincidental.
    The Obama administration has repeatedly urged a halt to settlement expansion.
    Israel annexed East Jerusalem after its capture in the 1967 war, when the West Bank and Gaza were also seized. Citing Biblical roots, Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its capital, a claim not recognized internationally.
    If the plan materialises it would effectively cut off Jerusalem's mainly Arab neighbourhoods from Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, imperilling the Palestinians' prospects for establishing a coherent capital and with it their goal of an independent state.
    For Israelis, all of the city, including East Jerusalem and its West Bank suburbs captured in 1967, is their "eternal and indivisible" capital, the home the Jews dreamed of through 2,000 years of exile, and the site of their revered Western Wall.
    In the absence of a deal, or even meaningful negotiations, Israel has been busy developing the holy city, building impressive, stone-clad neighbourhoods across the annexed land in defiance of constant international criticism.
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