Netanyahu defends Jerusalem building despite controversy

TEL AVIV - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Monday plans for further housing construction in Jerusalem despite sharp international criticism and what was called the worst crisis in Israel’s ties with the US in 35 years.

Amid further repercussions from last week’s announcement by Israel of new construction in East Jerusalem, US diplomats said that a visit by Washington’s Mideast envoy George Mitchell to kick off indirect Israeli-Palestinian talks remained uncertain Monday.

Netanyahu, in remarks reported after a meeting of his Likud party faction, would not back off plans for 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem.

“Construction in Jerusalem - and anywhere else - will continue as has been the custom during the past 42 years,” he said according to the Haaretz daily.

“The cabinet’s decision to end the construction freeze after 10 months remains standing,” Netanyahu added.

The Israeli premier also said that there was nearly total consensus among the country’s political parties that what were deemed as Jewish neighbourhoods in and around Jerusalem would remain “part of the state of Israel”, Haaretz reported.

Netanyahu’s comments came amid concerns about Mitchell arriving to kick off the long-anticipated indirect talks between Israeli and Palestinian officials, who were expecting Mitchell Tuesday.

But Kurt Hoyer, a spokesman for the US embassy in Tel Aviv, said the visit’s details were not finalized by late Monday afternoon. “There is no timetable. It’s all up in the air,” he told DPA.

US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters in Washington that Mitchell’s travel plans remain “fluid” and would not say whether he will go the region before flying to Moscow for international discussions on the peace process.

“I expect him in the region soon,” Crowley said.

Israeli media quoted Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, as calling the US-Israeli crisis the worst in 35 years.

He reportedly made the remark in a conference call with Israeli consuls in the US Saturday night.

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in an unusually harsh telephone call with Netanyahu last Friday said the action had “undermined trust and confidence in the peace process and in America’s interests”, Crowley said.

Clinton “made clear that the Israeli government needed to not just through words, but through specific actions, that they are committed to this relationship and to the peace process,” Crowley said.

On Monday, Crowley refused to get into the details of Clinton’s demands, or if they included Israel repeal the construction plans for East Jerusalem, nor would he respond to Netanyahu’s remarks about the plans moving forward.

“We asked for a formal response from the Israeli government and when we get that response we’ll react to it,” he said.

Israeli media reported Monday that these specific actions included shelving the Ramat Shlomo project, as well as other confidence-building measures to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has threatened he would not go through with the indirect talks.

Meanwhile further criticism of Israeli’s housing plans came Monday from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the European Union’s top diplomat Catherine Ashton, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abdul Gheit and Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa.

In Berlin, in talks with visiting Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Merkel called the housing decision a “serious blow” to the prospects for the proximity talks.

She said she had called Netanyahu to warn that the decision could disrupt the entire Middle East peace process.

In Cairo, Ashton - embarking on her first official tour of the region - Monday told the Arab League the Israeli decision “endangered and undermined the tentative agreement to begin proximity talks.

“The EU position on settlements is clear,” Ashton said. “Settlements are illegal, constitute an obstacle to peace, and threaten to make a two-state solution impossible. A solution that the Israeli prime minister says he supports,” she said.

Moussa, speaking after Ashton, said Arab states had backed the indirect talks only after four hours of debate.

Eventually, he said, Arab League members came to a consensus that the talks were “a futile exercise, but let’s see what happens. I hope that we shall not regret our decision”.

Abul-Gheit told reporters he and Ashton had discussed Europe’s commitment to halting the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. “Israel must understand that the international community is angry … and that there must be a price,” he said.