Does anyone know when Israel, if at all, agreed not to “take unilateral steps that prejudge the Jerusalem’s future”. Israel annexed the land before Oslo. That should have settled it. I don’t believe there is any commitment on Israel’s part to so refrain. Ted Belman
U.S. State Department: Settlement activity is illegitimate and we oppose unilateral steps that prejudge Jerusalem’s future • PM Benjamin Netanyahu: Criticism of Jerusalem construction is “disconnected from reality.”
Hayom Staff and The Associated Press
Construction in Jerusalem’s Ramat Shlomo neighborhood [Archive]
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision on Monday to advance the planned construction of more than 1,000 new housing units in Jerusalem drew criticism from the United States and European Union.
According to the plans, 660 apartments are to be built in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood and 400 apartments are to be built in Har Homa. Ramat Shlomo is a neighborhood in northern Jerusalem, situated between Ramot Alon and Shuafat, and Har Homa is a neighborhood in southeast Jerusalem. Both neighborhoods are located across the Green Line (the pre-1967 armistice line).
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the U.S. was “deeply concerned” by reports of Netanyahu’s decision.
“We continue to make our position absolutely clear that we view settlement activity as illegitimate and unequivocally oppose unilateral steps that prejudge the future of Jerusalem,” Psaki said. “Israel’s leaders have said they would support a pathway to a two-state solution, but moving forward with this type of action would be incompatible with the pursuit of peace, and that is certainly a message that we are conveying directly.”
Maja Kocijancic, spokeswoman for outgoing EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, expressed a similar sentiment, saying, if the reports of the decision were confirmed, “it will call once again into serious question Israel’s commitment to a negotiated solution with the Palestinians.”
“We could not but condemn such an ill-judged and ill-timed decision … and we call for the urgent reversal of this decision. We stress that the future development of relations between the EU and Israel will depend on the latter’s engagement towards a lasting peace based on a two-state solution.”
On Tuesday, Netanyahu called criticism of Israeli construction in Jerusalem “disconnected from reality.”
“[This criticism] infuses the empty rhetoric of the Palestinians,” Netanyahu said. “When [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] incites the murder of Jews in Jerusalem, the international community is silent, but when we build in Jerusalem, it gets furious. I do not accept this double standard.”
“We will continue to build in Jerusalem,” Netanyahu pledged.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Jordan’s mission to the United Nations said his country would request an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting on behalf of the Palestinians, who have written to the council president about “dangerously escalating tensions” in east Jerusalem.
Laith Ibrahim Obeidat confirmed the request in a message Monday and said his country, a Security Council member, would ask the council president to set a date.
A letter from Palestinian Authority Ambassador to the U.N. Riyad Mansour to the council president on Monday called on the international community to demand that Israel “cease forthwith all of its illegal settlement activities” in east Jerusalem and elsewhere.
@ woolymammoth:
Indeed we are in close link regarding the panorama about us. I believe that far more curtailments than those known are being placed in front of the former free running foreign operatives here. I agree with you about the Oslo treason plan and yet I do not see the need for declarations. In fact the less we blabber the better it is.
As to what happened to various LIKUd and pretend likud governments. The LIKUD was infiltrated or one may say infested by MAPAI-MAPAM trolls many years ago.
Mr. Begin was set upon by Dayan, Weitzman, and Sharon, nothing less. Dayan as the architect of the Har Habait betrayal, set the pace for Mr. Begin about Jerusalem, Weitzman was bought into his role by foreign elements, a 1 million dollars trail went under the table to that end. And Sharon, well, what can one say about that specimen and associates that is not on record already?
Olmert, Livni, Meridor, Milo were and are second tier plants.
I do see that Netanyahu may well have wrapped Livni by close association appearances. That one may have thought that her stint as “apartment sitter” in Paris for the Mossad could serve to advance her to being a factor above the waist. Once an apartment sitter… forever one.
@ SHmuel HaLevi 2: If the past is any guide, Netanyahu will use the project as a bargaining chip to maintain the status quo. Sorry Mr. HaLevi, I cannot take your bet because we’re on the same side of this one. I hope I am wrong.
At some point The GOI needs to declare Oslo obsolete. I do not see how Israel can make any territorial concessions whatsoever; including what it has offered in the past. ALL PREVIOUS OFFERS IN NEGOTIATIONS IN THE PAST ARE NULL AND VOID.
Where does it say in Oslo or any agreement Israel is a signatory to, that it must keep trying to offer the pa a state indefintely into the future despite the pa’s abrogation of the agreement in every imaginable way, countless times for years on end. The time limit is up.
The answer is Israel can declare the failed process as caput; DEAD. This should be communicated as soon as possible. I think it would be more than fair for Israel to state that it is in the process of evening out the curtailment of illegal construction within it’s jurisdiction and commence IMMEDIATELY to demolish illegal structures built by the other residents, the Arabs, out of fairness. Fence off those properties after preparing the ground for more affordable homes for Israel’s population. Oh..stop the violence in Jerusalem with no delay whatsoever, just END IT.
Place ON HOLD, Mossad intelligence briefings to The EU and The US until such time as they resume their alliance with Israel and end the undermining so prevalant today.
From where did these uppity jews get the idea that they are allowed to move out of their GHETTO in Jerusalem?
A swindler and con artist will squeeze his fool sucker for all he has got and then march him to an ATM to get what he does not have on him.
In acceding to canards of illegitimacy and illegality of Jews settling in any part of Israel the despicable swindlers now demand Jerusalem…which was thought to have been settled. There is no reason that one day the jews will be demanded to stay out of arab areas in Israel because they wish to secede. The same reasoning that allows this allows tomorrow. In fact it is even worse to demand a Jew to stay out of Jerusalem than to stay out of Tel Aviv. This argument reinforces the argument that Jews are europeans who are stealing land from arabs.
HALT THE RETREAT AND ASSERT ZIONISM WITH PRIDE!
THIS IS THE MOST FILTHY, VILE, DISGUSTING AND DESPICABLE ANTI SEMITISM
It is inconceivable to allow anyone to state that Jews living in any part of Israel or Jerusalem could be illegitimate.
And yet suceeding govs of israel repeatedly allow these vile despicable obscenities to be hurled as a slap in the face to all Jewish people.
A JEW IN ISRAEL IS CALLED ILLEGITIMATE
By allowing such obscenties to pass by regarding YS the GOI is now defending the rights of Jews to live outside their ghettos in JERUSALEM of all places. Next year it will be demanded of Haifa and Tel aviv….absurd you say?????? What could be more absurd than asserting that it is illegitimate for a Jew to live outside the jewish ghetto in the holy city of JERUSALEM!
The despicable and filthy obama spokesman has demanded that Jews in Jerusalem stay inside their designated ghetto
such insults should be repudiated as disgusting, despicable by any Jew.
The government of israel has brought all this on by not following the simple advice of an ex muslim jew hater:
failure to act accordingly will continue to embolden the filthy anti semites in the white house
Taking bets.
Will Netanyahu fold again or not?
I say he will not even remotely do as he says.