Israel building plan runs into heavy fire (2nd Roundup)

Mar 10, 2010, 16:45 GMT

Jerusalem - Israel faced Palestinian, US and European wrath Wednesday as an announcement of new construction in East Jerusalem overshadowed a visit by US Vice-President Joe Biden and led to Palestinian charges that Israel was trying to 'sabotage' peace talks.

An embarrassed Biden, taken by surprise by the Israeli announcement of Tuesday evening, said the decision to build 1,600 housing units in a part of Jerusalem Palestinians want for the capital of their future state complicated the atmosphere necessary for peace talks to proceed.

'As we move forward, the US will hold both sides accountable for any statements or actions that inflame tensions or prejudice the outcome of talks, and this decision did,' he told reporters after meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.

Abbas said the Israeli decision 'sabotages trust and is a severe blow to efforts of the last few days to resume indirect negotiations.'

'The settlement activity threatens these negotiations and we demand they be cancelled,' he said.

The European Union's foreign-policy director - in an unusually blunt statement - not only condemned the Israeli plan, but called for it to be scrapped.

'The EU condemns the decision by the government of Israel to build new housing units in East Jerusalem. Israel should reverse this decision ... Settlements are illegal under international law,' Catherine Ashton said.

Israel's Interior Ministry announced late Tuesday that the Jerusalem Planning and District Committee had approved the building of 1,600 new homes in Ramat Shlomo, an ultra-Orthodox neighbourhood in northern Jerusalem, near the Palestinian village of Shuafat.

The neighbourhood is built on occupied West Bank land, and lies within the municipal boundaries drawn up by Israel after it annexed East Jerusalem following its capture in the 1967 Middle East War.

The building announcement came only 24 hours after US Middle East envoy George Mitchell said that Israelis and Palestinians had agreed to begin indirect, or 'proximity,' peace talks.

Palestinian agreement to the talks was a back-down from their long-held refusal to resume suspended peace negotiations until Israel halted all construction in its West Bank settlements and in occupied East Jerusalem.

A partial 10-month moratorium on construction, issued by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in November, was deemed by Abbas to be insufficient, since it was limited in scope and did not include East Jerusalem.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who met Biden Wednesday afternoon, called the latest Israeli move 'damaging for sure.'

'This is a moment of great challenge to the efforts led by the US to get the political process going again,' he said.

Interior Minister Eli Yishai of the ultra-Orthodox Shas coalition party said Wednesday that it should be 'clear to everyone' that East Jerusalem was not included in the settlement construction moratorium.

But he protested that he had meant no harm or disrespect to Biden.

The minister said the Planning and District Committee was a local body that was not obliged to update the central government about 'technical' and 'procedural' matters. He said the construction plan in Ramat Shlomo was three years old and still passing through various stages of approval.

'I do think we must show sensitivity to the visit of a senior American figure, and had we known about this in advance, ... we would have postponed it two weeks, three,' he told Israel Radio.

Biden's immediate reaction to the Israeli announcement was to instruct White House staff to issue an unusually strong statement in the midst of his visit, sharply condemning the move.

The vice president also signalled his displeasure by keeping Netanyahu and his wife Sarah waiting for 90 minutes before showing up for a dinner they were hosting for him Tuesday night.

Yishai's explanations were not enough, however, to ward off condemnation, from inside Israel and from abroad.

The Israeli plan drew sharp statements from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who said that 'settlements are illegal under international law,' as well as from Germany and France.

There was criticism too from within Netanyahu's governing coalition.

'A big error in government bureaucracy that should never have happened,' said Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog, of the centre-left Labour party, describing the move.

Labour Party leader, Ehud Barak, called the announcement 'damaging' to the negotiations with the Palestinians.

The opposition centrist Kadima party, for its part, said the announcement set a new record for 'diplomatic folly.'