Image via WikipediaIsrael moves ahead with new east Jerusalem housing | ajc.comERUSALEM — The Israeli government is moving ahead with plans to build nearly 1,300 apartments in disputed east Jerusalem, an official said Monday, drawing a harsh U.S. response just as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is there for meetings with American leaders.
The plan drew renewed attention to Israeli settlement policies just as Washington was pressing Israel to curb construction in a bid to get stalled peace talks back on track.
Israel's Interior Ministry said the decision to seek public comment on the building plans was merely a procedural step.
Even so, the announcement risked setting off another Israeli run-in with Vice President Joe Biden, who met with Netanyahu in New Orleans on Sunday. Israel infuriated Biden early this year by announcing other construction plans in east Jerusalem while the vice president was visiting.
In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Monday's announcement was "deeply disappointing" and "counterproductive to our efforts to resume direct negotiations between the parties."
Netanyahu's office did not comment.
The U.S., along with the rest of the international community, opposes Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem — captured territories claimed by the Palestinians.
Washington is already frustrated over Netanyahu's refusal to renew curbs on settlement construction in the West Bank that expired in September. The Palestinians say they will walk away from peace talks, relaunched just two months ago, if the building restrictions aren't renewed.
Netanyahu's talks with Biden, and later this week with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, are aimed at finding a compromise to restart the talks. Clinton has said that the settlements are a secondary issue that would be solved automatically if the two sides agree on borders.
News of the new building plans came from Israel's Interior Ministry, which is controlled by the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas Party, and it was not known whether Netanyahu was told about it ahead of time.
Interior Ministry official Efrat Orbach said the plans to build 978 apartments in the Har Homa neighborhood and 320 in the neighborhood of Ramot were approved six months ago but that for unspecified "technical reasons" the ministry only recently published the plans to give the public an opportunity to appeal.
She denied the timing of the move had anything to do with Netanyahu's U.S. trip and said it would take years before building actually starts.
The anti-settlement Israeli group Peace Now denounced the move as a "huge provocation by Netanyahu at a very sensitive time in the negotiation process." It said in a statement that "it is going to take a few years until the bulldozers can start the construction."
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said regardless of when the building actually takes place, the latest Israeli move was a sign of bad faith.
He said the Palestinians had hoped Netanyahu had gone to the U.S. "to make a choice for peace and not settlements."
"Unfortunately, once again, when given the choice, he chooses settlements," Erekat said. "We hold him fully responsible for the collapse of these negotiations."
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