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is israel poking a beehive ???
| quote: | Israel will defy American pressure to halt the construction of controversial Jewish housing in Arab east Jerusalem, when President Obama meets Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, in the White House today.
Fresh from his historic victory to reform American healthcare, the US leader is to be confronted, within hours, with a foreign policy crisis. This time Mr Obama must resolve the worst breakdown in relations in decades between America and its closest regional ally, Israel, and try to get the Arab-Israeli peace process moving again.
But any hopes of a compromise were dashed yesterday when Nir Barkat, the Mayor of Jerusalem, insisted that Jewish settlements would go ahead in spite of US objections.
Mr Barkat said that Israel had not intended to insult America, when it announced a 1,600-home plan in Ramat Shlomo during a peace mission by Joe Biden, the US Vice-President, earlier this month. He remained adamant that the project would go ahead.
“I do not think anybody intended, naturally, to try to insult,” he said in an interview at the Israeli Embassy in London. “But let us not get mixed up. Planning in the city of Jerusalem has to, should and will continue. We want to be sensitive to the American Administration but I want to make sure people realise there is no [housing] freeze in the city of Jerusalem.”
The former paratrooper added that not only would the development proceed, but he also revealed details for another housing project in east Jerusalem. The “King’s Garden” project in the flashpoint Arab area of Silwan, the scene of regular disturbances beween Palestinians and Jewish settlers, envisages the demolition of 80 Palestinian homes to make way for a park.
The status of the holy city is supposed to be negotiated as part of a final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, who want the Arab side of the city to become the future capital of their state. Mr Barkat said that Jerusalem would remain the capital of the Jewish state. It is believed that Israel may be prepared to hold off for a matter of weeks to enable talks to resume with the Palestinians, but has ruled out a permanent freeze.
He was strongly backed last night by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, who offered an uncompromising defence of Israeli construction in East Jerusalem. "The connection between the Jewish people and Jerusalem cannot be denied," he told a conference in Washington. "The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 years ago and they are building Jerusalem today."
He said that the city was "not a settlement - it's our capital" and added that nearly half its Jewish population lived beyond the 1949 armistice line in what is considered East Jerusalem. "Everybody knows that these neighbourhoods will be part of Israel in any settlement," he claimed. "Therefore building in them in no way precludes a two-state solution."
Mr Netanyahu was speaking to more than half the members of Congress at a dinner hosted by America's most prominent pro-Israel lobby. He meets President Obama in the White House later today.
His remarks, and those of Mr Barkat, were in sharp contrast to the views expressed by Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, yesterday in an address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful Israel lobby meeting in Washington. She said: “New construction in east Jerusalem or the West Bank undermines mutual trust and endangers the proximity talks that are the first step toward the full negotiations that both sides want and need,” she said.
Mr Barkat said that the city was planning 50,000 apartments, two thirds for Jewish neighbourhoods and a third for Arabs, in proportion to the existing size of the two communities. |
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| quote: | Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, will use a visit to Washington this week to press the US to release sophisticated bunker-busting bombs needed for a possible strike on Iran’s nuclear sites.
The trip comes as both sides strive to defuse the crisis provoked by Israel’s announcement during a visit by Vice-President Joe Biden this month of the building of 1,600 houses in east Jerusalem.
Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, said in Ramallah yesterday: “Let us be clear: all settlement activity is illegal anywhere in occupied territory, and this must stop.” |
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/ne...icle7071927.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/ne...icle7069724.ece
why is israel so adamant in provoking a new wave of violence??
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i wanna wipe my ass with mona lisa !!!
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do you ever not support Israel? for the first time in years the U.S government has grown some balls to question Israel's actions. I say keep it is about fuckin time.
