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Latest update: 28/09/2011
- Israeli settlements - Israeli-Palestinian conflict
US, EU condemn Israel settlement plan
The US and the EU roundly condemned Israel's announcement Tuesday that it planned to build 1,100 new homes in East Jerusalem. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the move "counter-productive" to the efforts to revive peace talks.
REUTERS - Israel approved on Tuesday the construction of 1,100 settlement homes on annexed land in the West Bank, complicating global efforts to renew peace talks and defuse a crisis over a Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations.
The plan was met with a chorus of Western criticism. Britain and the European Union called on Israel to reverse the decision, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said new settlement building would be “counter-productive” to the efforts to revive peace talks.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas applied at the U.N. on Friday for full Palestinian membership, a move opposed by Israel and the United States, which urged him to resume negotiations.
Abbas has made a cessation of Israeli settlement building a condition for returning to talks which collapsed a year ago after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to extend a 10-month partial moratorium on construction.
The so-called Quartet of international mediators — the United States, the European Union, Russia and the U.N. — has called for talks to begin within a month and urged both sides not to take unilateral actions that could block peacemaking.
Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said the new housing units Israel wants to build represented “1,100 ‘noes’ to the Quartet statement” urging a resumption of negotiations.
“Israel is challenging the will of the international community with the continued settlement policy,” Nabil Abu Rdainah, an Abbas spokesman, said.
The new homes are to be built in Gilo, an urban settlement that Israel erected on land it captured in the West Bank in a 1967 war and annexed unilaterally as part of its declared capital, Jerusalem.
Palestinians want to create a state in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and say settlements could deny them a viable country. Israel cites historical and Biblical links to the West Bank, which it calls Judea and Samaria.
Some 500,000 settlers live in the territory home to 2.5 million Palestinians.
Israel’s Interior Ministry said a district planning committee approved the Gilo project and public objections to the proposal could be lodged within a 60-day review period, after which construction could begin.
Despite the new crisis over settlements, Netanyahu held consultations on Tuesday with a forum of senior cabinet ministers about Quartet efforts to try and renew peace talks in the coming weeks, an Israeli political source said.
Palestinian leaders were expected to debate the Quartet’s plan on Wednesday.
In New York on Monday, a divided U.N. Security Council met behind closed doors for its first discussion of last week’s Palestinian application for full U.N. membership as a state.
The move seems certain to fail due to Israeli and U.S. opposition, despite substantial support by other governments.
Abu Rdainah said it was up to the Security Council to put a stop to Israel’s settlement policy "which is destroying the two-state solution and putting more obstacles in front of any effort to bring about a resumption of negotiations".
In London, Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague said settlement expansion was illegal and "corrodes trust and undermines the basic principle of land for peace. We call on the Government of Israel to revoke this decision."
The European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she deplored the decision, adding: " I call on the Israeli authorities to reverse this plan."
Richard Miron, spokesman for U.N. Middle East envoy Robert Serry, called Israel’s decision "very concerning".
Clinton said the Israeli decision was « counter-productive to our efforts to resume direct negotiations between the parties.
"As you know, we have long urged both sides to avoid any kind of action which could undermine trust, including, and perhaps most particularly, in Jerusalem, any action that could be viewed as provocative by either side," she told reporters at a news conference.
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Comments (8)
i like israel
Arabs just hit everyone
I say this because I live in Ashkelon, hundreds of Qassam rockets falling all over the city, the Arabs themselves make all residents of Israel treat them like that!
and do not of them any good, not the economy, not help! They think only of themselves, if they want a state they need to doeverything alone and that Israel will stop any assistance! Israel is the only country that transfers full of money into Gaza and the PAand they just fired rockets and do terror attacks
Israel buiding houses in Gi;o
As the quality of reports on France 24 English service are generally impressive and worthy of praise it is all the more disappointing when your reporters make misleading statements even though they may possibly be excusable due to their being constantly subjected to misinformation.
Recent repetitive accusations that Israel’s intention to build houses in Gilo is a deliberately provocative expansion of settlement construction are misleading and harmful as they bolster the Palestinian excuse to continue their intransigent refusal to enter into peace negotiations. .
Certainly building houses in Gilo is not an impediment to such negotiations since even the PA acknowledges that the negotiations will involve new borders.
Gilo is not in East Jerusalem as is repeatedly claimed. It is in the South West of Jerusalem and an integral part of the municipality as recognized even by peacemaker the late Yitzhak Rabin. Gilo has no resemblance to settlement outposts in the West Bank that are often in the news. To refer to Gilo, a residential suburb of Jerusalem of more than 40,000 souls and within walking distance of the Knesset, as a settlement unreasonably stretches the meaning of the word.
Objecting to Israel building houses in Gilo is akin to objecting to Palestinians building in Raamallah.The Oslo Accords divided the West Bank into zones A, B, and C. Jerusalem is in Zone A under Israeli control. Ramallah is in Zone B under Palestinian control. Very significantly the Accords do not require any freeze of building activity and even the road map speaks only of dismantling "outposts" erected since March 2001, a far cry from Gilo, that has been a residential suburb of Jerusalem since 197.
In his video message to the November 2000, Rabin Rally in Tel Aviv, President Obama urged Israel to pursue Rabin's legacy. It is therefore relevant to recall that in his last speech to the Knesset on October 5, 1995, Rabin said "The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines” he said.
Click here for a 2009 Jerusalem Post article containing more detailed information about construction in Gilo or copy and paste the following URL in your browser
http://www.2nd-thoughts.org/id249.html
US, EU Condemn building new settlements
The comments coming from Hilary Clinton are hollow. The US preaches democracy, but when called upon to uphold democracy it uses weasel words and plays the veto card. William Hague is also complicit with the US by supporting the Israeli position by default. This is only to be expected of the UK government which as it hasn't a mind of its own follows the US like the poodle that it is. The UN has over the last 20 years become a tool for the US whenever US foreign policy with regard to Israel is involved. More even handedness, a removal of the veto for all countries, and perhaps some humility by the US in accepting that they are wrong would be a good starting point.
US, EU Condemn building new settlements
The comments coming from Hilary Clinton are hollow. The US preaches democracy, but when called upon to uphold democracy it uses weasel words and plays the veto card. William Hague is also complicit with the US by supporting the Israeli position by default. This is only to be expected of the UK government which as it hasn't a mind of its own follows the US like the poodle that it is. The UN has over the last 20 years become a tool for the US whenever US foreign policy with regard to Israel is involved. More even handedness, a removal of the veto for all countries, and perhaps some humility by the US in accepting that they are wrong would be a good starting point.
us/eu/quartet condemn israeli building homes
There is something Orwellian/Kafkaesque in the condemnation of building homes by Israel- but no condemnation of smuggling/assembling/detonating rockets and missiles by the Palestinians to kill as many Jews if suicide bombers not available. Or Syria killing its own citizens? Or Saudi Arabia beheading domestic workers? Or Bahrain sentencing protestors (medics incl)to death and doctors attending the wounded for 15 yrs in prison? Or Turkey killing Kurds in Iraq- ditto Iran? Or EU nations attacking,even killing and not providing schooling,healthcare and housing for the Roma? Buildings do no harm-they are employing people to have a job and a home- yet this is condemned by EU? Not the acts of violence,mayhem and murder ?
"Enough"?
I think you might be somewhat unaware but to share the land with the palestinians would bring no peace but only war, have you heard the way Mahmoud talks and others for that matter, they want not only a palestinian state but they want Israel "wiped off the map" literally. They pretend they want to "share" but they want the land for themselves and Israel completely obliterated, somewhat like hitler. And Egypt hates Israel now, its true, most Arab nations surrounding do. They would only consider peace after destroying Israel, dont be fooled by the media. And even at that, palestine would war with themselves as has already been seen Fatah, Hamas etc. ok these are the groups and not the people but these groups control the people. you should check out some videos on youtube of "palestinian mickey mouse", this is a childrens program teaching kids in palestine about Jihad and honoring suicide bombers, then you might become aware of the psyche of the people there. "very peaceful indeed".
Israel is about the law
Israel does what it wants when it wants and the USA will back it no matter how much land it takes and how many people it kills. Jews don't need planing permission from anyone to build and sell houses. That's why it sounds nicer when they call real estate "settlement homes " it sounds less commercial and less to do with making money.
Enough.
I'm not a fanatic and absolutely disagree with anything Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says but after witnessing all these years of suffer and contempt imposed to the Palestinians people from the successive Israelis governements, my indignation is getting closer and closer to his point of view on the matter.. And the US-EU expressed their disagreement, is at all? Is it not their job at the Security Council to enforce international laws and therefore impose at least economic sanctions on Israel for breaching them by building new settlements?? Absolutely pathetic.. The Israeli governement should be more aware of the Spring winds that blasts the region and the changing world.. Turkey has already put a foot in the conflict and we can assume without being too pessimistic that the relations with Egypt will only deteriorate compare to Mubarrak's era.. My only hope is in the Israeli people to force their governement to fairly share their common beautiful land and leave in peace forever.. But as most of our "Westeners" leaders, they probably too busy enriching themselves over militaro-industrial deals..
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