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Latest update: 27/09/2011
- Israeli settlements - Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Israel approves 1,100 new homes in East Jerusalem
Israel approved on Tuesday a plan for 1,100 new homes in East Jerusalem, prompting condemnation from the Palestinian Authority, who argue that settlement activity hampers efforts to resume the peace process.
By News Wires (text)
AP – Israel’s government on Tuesday granted the go-ahead for construction of 1,100 new housing units in occupied east Jerusalem, raising already heightened tensions fueled by last week’s Palestinian move to seek U.N. membership.
Israel’s Interior Ministry said the homes would be built in Gilo, a sprawling Jewish enclave in southeast Jerusalem. It said construction could begin after a mandatory 60-day period for public comment, a process that is largely a formality.
The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as their future capital. They have demanded that Israel halt all settlement construction in east Jerusalem and the adjacent West Bank – territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war – as a condition for resuming peace talks.
Israel says east Jerusalem, home to sensitive Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites, is an eternal part of its undivided capital.
Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, swiftly condemned the Israeli decision, saying it amounted to “1,100 no’s to the resumption of peace talks.”
He urged the United States, Israel’s closest and most important ally, to change its position and support the Palestinians in their quest for U.N. membership.
With peace talks stalled for the past three years, the Palestinians last week asked the United Nations to recognize an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.
The U.S. opposes the measure and has vowed to veto the request in the Security Council. Like Israel, the U.S. says a Palestinian state can only be established through negotiations.
In an interview published Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would not freeze settlement construction again.
Speaking to the Jerusalem Post, he said that a 10-month moratorium on new construction last year failed to yield results. He said he saw no need for another freeze.
Netanyahu says negotiations should begin without any preconditions.
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Peace Talks
History is our best teacher.
Would China return Tibet
Would USA return Texas to Mexico
The Arab world attacked Israel 1967 with the goal of destroying Israel.
The price they paid was to lose their land.
This land now belongs to Israel.
Israel can put settlements on their own land without asking permission from the Arabs.
There are only Arabs..There is no Palistine..the British took care of that.
This land is Israeli. This is the spoils of war like Tibet and Texas.
Isreal building settlements in palastine
i still dont know why the world is allowing isreal to do this to a whole population of palastinians ,am starting to think its because most most of the western world is christian ,and just because they see it as the 'holy land of christ' ,putting their faith infront of the human rights they swore to protected ,especially the U.S ,am not muslim or christian ,or any other faith ,but i still see the wrong in what isreal is doing ,this is apartheid
i like israel
Israel needs to build much, much more in Jerusalem, and must not give the Arabs a state !!!!!!!!
This is outrageous.
WHEN and WHO will stop this monster?! Zionists control the US government, Europe is the only hope. Please, Europe, sanction Israel. Cut them off. Send a strong message. END THIS!
No law applies in Israel
And they wonder why the rest of the world is sick of the way they treat the law.
people and the rest of mankind.Its shameful.