Israel says must trade Jerusalem areas with Arabs
Pastor Dale Morgan
Israel says must trade Jerusalem areas with Arabs*
By Avida Landau and Brenda Gazzar
Reuters
Sunday, December 9, 2007; 11:22 AM
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's deputy prime minister responded on Sunday
to U.S. criticism of plans to build homes on occupied land in the
Jerusalem area by saying parts of the city must be given to the
Palestinians to avoid losing U.S. support.
But Haim Ramon told Israeli radio that Israel would not give up the
settlement where the building plan announced last week sparked
Palestinian anger and a warning from U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice that it risked harming a peace process she helped relaunch last
month at the Annapolis conference.
Israel has rejected criticism of a tender for some 300 more homes and
other units at Har Homa -- which Arabs call Abu Ghneim -- on the grounds
that it annexed the land and placed it inside Jerusalem city boundaries
it drew after occupying the West Bank in 1967. That annexation is not
recognized internationally.
Ramon said that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's opponents were being
unrealistic in hoping for U.S. support for any peace plan that would
give the Jewish state all the present Jerusalem municipality, which
includes Arab East Jerusalem and other territory annexed from the West
Bank, as its capital.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wants East Jerusalem as capital of a
Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
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Ramon told Army Radio: "I am convinced that all Jewish neighborhoods,
including Har Homa, should be under Israeli sovereignty and the Arab
neighborhoods should not be under Israeli sovereignty because they pose
a threat to Jerusalem being the capital of Jewish Israel."
Palestinian leaders have said the new building project could wreck
U.S.-backed peace talks and, in rare U.S. public censure of Israel, Rice
warned on Friday that it could threaten the peace drive, saying the plan
"doesn't help to build confidence."
Ramon said giving up Palestinian villages incorporated into Jerusalem
after 1967, such as Walajeh and Jabal Mukaber, could avoid further
rebuke from the United States at a time Israel needs its backing.
INSIDE JERUSALEM
Israel has rebuffed Rice's criticism, saying the Jewish state has the
right to build anywhere in Jerusalem.
Construction and Housing Minister Zeev Boim said before a cabinet
meeting on Sunday the plan was legal because it took place "within the
framework of the municipality."
Education Minister Yuli Tamir also said that while Israel must be "very
careful" not to violate international agreements, Har Homa fell within
city boundaries.
The future of Jewish settlements under any peace deal is one of the
thorniest issues facing negotiators, due to meet on Wednesday for their
first talks since launching the long-stalled peace process in Washington
almost two weeks ago.
U.S. President George W. Bush wants an agreement on Palestinian
statehood before he leaves office at the end of next year, but many
observers say that time scale is too ambitious given big differences on
core issues such as Jerusalem, borders and Palestinian refugees, which
have derailed previous talks.
Under a U.S.-backed "road map," Israel is required to freeze settlement
activity and Palestinians must rein in militants.
Hundreds of right-wing Israeli activists climbed craggy West Bank hills
on Sunday to protest against handing back land to the Palestinians,
though a police spokesman said they did not erect new outposts. Scores
of Jewish outposts, unauthorized by Israel, have sprouted in the West Bank.
Israel wants to draw a fortified border through the West Bank that would
place major Jewish settlements inside a newly defined Israel and says it
could remove outlying communities.
(Writing by Alastair Macdonald and Rebecca Harrison; Editing by Tim Pearce)