Israeli plan for homes near Jerusalem under fire
Pastor Dale Morgan
Israeli plan for homes near Jerusalem under fire*
Reuters
Wednesday, December 19, 2007; 6:53 AM
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's Housing Ministry has drawn up a
preliminary proposal to build new homes on occupied land near Jerusalem
but Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said on Wednesday the plan has
not been authorized.
The issue of Israeli settlement building in the Jerusalem area has
clouded renewed peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians launched
at a U.S.-sponsored conference last month.
Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Israeli settlement
expansion will "destroy the peace process and must be stopped." Israeli
and Palestinian negotiating teams plan to hold their second round of
talks on Dec 23 or 24.
Israeli Construction and Housing Minister Zeev Boim played down the
proposal to build new homes near what Israel refers to as Atarot and the
Palestinians call Qalandia in the West Bank.
The area in question is on the outskirts of Arab East Jerusalem whose
future is to be decided in final-status talks between Israel and the
Palestinians.
Disputes over settlements and Jerusalem, which Israel wants as its
undivided capital and where Palestinians want East Jerusalem as capital
of a Palestinian state, are central to the negotiations President George
W. Bush hopes can be concluded before he steps down in January 2009.
Boim told Army Radio the housing proposal was only in the conceptual
stage. A senior Israeli official said the Housing Ministry has "all
sorts of contingency plans" that go nowhere.
Olmert's office distanced itself from the proposal.
"Nothing has been decided and nothing has been authorized," said Mark
Regev, Olmert's spokesman.
The Palestinians are already protesting Israeli plans to build new homes
at a settlement near Bethlehem known to Israelis as Har Homa and the
Palestinians as Abu Ghneim.
Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon, a close Olmert confidant, criticized
the draft Atarot-Qalandia proposal, suggesting it was conceived by
low-level ministry officials.
"These steps are unnecessary at this stage ... The road to building a
neighborhood like this is very long, and these things are not helping
negotiations," Ramon told Israel Radio.
Erekat said he spoke by phone to representatives from the Quartet of
Middle East mediators -- the United States, the European Union, Russia
and the United Nations -- and asked them to put pressure on Israel to
halt all settlement activity as called for under the long-stalled 'road
map' peace plan.
The road map calls for Israel to halt all settlement activity, including
so-called natural growth, and for the Palestinians to rein in militants.
(Reporting by Adam Entous and Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Samia Nakhoul)