YNET: "East J'lem neighborhood inaugurated amid controversy" (11/18/09)

Nof Zion Residents hold cornerstone ceremony amid Peace Now protest, world controversy over decision to resume construction in Gilo

By Ronen Medzini
 
Jerusalem's real estate enterprise continues to make headlines- A day after the controversial government decision to approve the construction of 900 housing units in the neighborhood of Gilo, some 100 residents of the east Jerusalem Nof Zion neighborhood gathered Wednesday for a cornerstone ceremony in honor of the neighborhood's second stage, which will include 105 additional housing units.
 
The new neighborhood, which was constructed in the heart of the Arab neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber, received headlines last month, when the residents brought the Torah into the temporary synagogue. According to the contractors, the third and fourth stages of the neighborhood are already in the works.
 
Among those who attended the ceremony were MK Danny Danon (Likud), as well as democratic New York State Assembly member Dov Hikind.
 
Alongside the residents, some 25 Peace Now activists protested the construction of the neighborhood, and called out the chants "The rightist settlers are a danger to Israel" and "Nof Zion will bring disaster".

"I am relaying a message to President Obama - take your hands off Jerusalem," said MK Danon, adding that "Jerusalem belongs to the Jewish people, and we have the full right to live and raise our children here.
 
"Twelve years ago (Benjamin) Netanyahu was also prime minister, and (US President Bill) Clinton and (US Secretary of State Madeleine) Albright also said not to build in Jerusalem and in Har Homa, yet look what's here- a magnificent Jewish neighborhood," said Danon.
 
Hikind, a member of Obama's Democratic Party, said he believed the US president is wrong to pressure Israel vis-à-vis the settlement construction: "Obama does not understand we are dealing with a Jewish place. Many of his predecessors also wanted and advanced peace, he is the only one stopping it.
 
"There is no reason why Jews should not live alongside Arabs and sell Glat Kosher food alongside Halal food. This should not pose a problem. The construction here is no impediment to peace," concluded Hikind.
 
Hagit Ofran, a Peace Now activist who protested during the ceremony, said "The construction in Nof Zion is bad for Israel and is meant to impede the chances for a two state solution.
 
"Eventually there will be no other choice, and a Palestinian capital will rise in east Jerusalem - al-Quds. Otherwise, we will end up with a multi-national state that is neither Jewish nor democratic. It is obvious the settlers came here today to inflame the American anger," said Ofran.
 
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3807247,00.html

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Politico: "White House rebukes Jerusalem housing plan"

Posted by Laura Rosen - November 17, 2009

In a rare public rebuke, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs issued a sharply-worded statement from China today expressing dismay and objection to an Israeli municipal body's decision to make way for hundreds more Jewish homes to be built in the Jerusalem suburb of Gilo, abutting a Palestinian village with many residents fighting Israeli demolition orders.

"We are dismayed at the Jerusalem Planning Committee's decision to move forward on the approval process for the expansion of Gilo in Jerusalem," Gibbs said in the statement. "At a time when we are working to re-launch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed. Neither party should engage in efforts or take actions that could unilaterally pre-empt, or appear to pre-empt, negotiations. The U.S. also objects to other Israeli practices in Jerusalem related to housing, including the continuing pattern of evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes."

"Our position is clear," Gibbs continued. "The status of Jerusalem is a permanent status issue that must be resolved through negotiations between the parties."

Gibbs' statement today appears to indicate White House tolerance is low for such provocations at such a delicate moment in its embattled efforts to get the parties back to the peace table.

Previously, the White House has tended to direct requests for comment about similar incidents -- Israeli evictions of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem this past summer, for instance -- to the State Department. But in a notable departure from recent efforts to deal more quietly with differences with Jerusalem and a sign of mounting U.S. frustration, today's public rebuke was pointedly initiated in a stand-alone statement from the White House spokesman, currently traveling with Barack Obama in China.

Part of U.S. anger may stem from the fact that Israel apparently rejected U.S. requests made in private to defer the Jerusalem Planning Committe's decison to expand Gilo. Among the U.S. officials who reportedly conveyed U.S. concern was Middle East Peace Envoy George Mitchell, who met yesterday with Israeli negotiator Yitzhak Molcho in London.

The Planning Committee's decision would reportedly make way for the expansion of the Jerusalem suburb of Gilo, in a neighborhood seized by Israel after the 1967 war, by some 900 housing units. The Gilo neighborhood is considered a suburb by many in Israel, and a settlement by the Palestinians and much the rest of the international community. The move to drastically expand Gilo while Palestinians are being evicted and having homes slated for demolition adds to growing Palestinian despair that Israel is changing facts on the ground to imperil the prospects for a two state solution.

The White House rebuke comes just over a week after Obama held a seventy minute one-on-one meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said to focus largely on troubled efforts to relaunch Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

In recent weeks, the Obama administration has been trying to persuade increasingly frustrated Palestinian leaders to agree to return to Israeli-Palestinian peace talks with something short of a full Israeli settlement freeze. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has so far refused, even threatening to not run in Palestinian elections. Last week he walked back from the brink when he agreed to a decision to postpone Palestinian elections.

Netanyahu has said that he, unlike Abbas, is ready to go to peace talks anytime, anywhere, without preconditions. He has also recently said that he would agree to a nine-month moratorium on new housing starts, with several hundred exceptions, and further land expropriations of Palestinian land in the West Bank.

One Washington Middle East watcher who declined to be identified suggested Netanyahu might have been preparing to announce the moratorium deal (and Gilo may have been part of advance cover-seeking from his right flank), but it wasn't clear if that was the case, or still the case, and the administration declined to comment.

Netanyahu may have deliberately escalated a fight over Jerusalem, some analysts alternatively suggested, because the idea of keeping Jerusalem the undivided capital of Israel has some support not only in Israel, but among some conservative American Jewish and Christian constituencies. "Our position is clear too," said Nathan Diament, of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. "Jerusalem is the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel and the Jewish people and, in this context, it is also worth noting that that is the official policy of the United States as articulated in a duly enacted Act of Congress."

"No genuine Israeli interest is served by any of these projects," wrote former State Department Middle East hand Lara Friedman now with Americans for Peace Now and Danny Seidemann. "The only interest served by these projects is the prevention of the two-state solution and the transformation of the Israeli-Arab conflict from a difficult but resolvable conflict over territory into an irresolvable zero-sum religious war."

http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/1109/White_House_expresses_dismay_at_Jerusalem_settlement_expansion.html

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Radio France: "EU attacks Israel's expansion plans"

11-18-09

The European Union Presidency on Wednesday criticised Israel's plans to expand settlements in East Jerusalem. The same day, Israeli bulldozers demolished Palestinian-owned houses in the Arab neighbourhood.

The EU presidency said it was "dismayed" by Israel's decision to add 900 new homes to the Gilo settlement in East Jerusalem.

"Settlement activities, house demolitions and evictions in East Jerusalem are illegal under international law," said an official statement.

Britain and the UN have also criticised Israel's decision, with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon saying it "undermined efforts for peace".

United States President Barack Obama warned on Wednesday that the move could prove "very dangerous" as Israel continues to alienate Palestinians.

Israel's Interior Minister Ellie Yishai responded by stating that construction in Jerusalem "cannot be halted".

The comments come on the same day that Israel destroyed a Palestinian-owned house in East Jerusalem.

The building is reported to have been home to two Palestinian families.

Israel issues demolition orders for buildings that do not have a valid construction permit. Palestinians say such permits are impossible to obtain.

Hageet Aufran, spokesperson for the Israeli non-governmental organisation Peace Now, was in Silwan, in East Jerusalem, on Wednesday and witnessed the destruction of a second house.

Aufran described the scene for RFI: "I see them demolishing the house, now pulling at its frame. There are many police here, many people... The police are making sure that there is no one inside.

"There is an old guy here, a Palestinian, who is being pushed by the police. Many people in the neighbourhood are standing and watching the house being demolished, and there is somebody shouting at the police."

http://www.rfi.fr/actuen/articles/119/article_5899.asp

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Los Angeles Times: "Jerusalem housing plan draws U.S. fire"

The White House, which is trying to foster peace talks, says it is 'dismayed' by an Israeli housing panel's approval of a plan to build 844 new homes in a part of Jerusalem claimed by Palestinians.

By Richard Boudreaux

November 18, 2009

Israel's plan to add 844 homes to a part of Jerusalem claimed by Palestinians drew sharp international protest Tuesday as U.S. officials denounced it as a blow to their already troubled effort to restart peace talks.

The Jerusalem Planning Committee's approval of the project is one step short of a final go-ahead to expand Gilo, a neighborhood built on land Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office responded to the criticism by insisting that it is Israel's prerogative to build anywhere in the city.

That was a setback for the Obama administration, which is scrambling to break a diplomatic impasse and talk Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas out of his threat to step down and abandon years of efforts to make peace with the Jewish state.

President Obama's envoy to the region, George J. Mitchell, had pleaded with Netanyahu to postpone the neighborhood expansion, a State Department official said. Israeli news media said a Netanyahu aide rebuffed the request in a Monday meeting with Mitchell in London.

The White House said it was "dismayed" by the planning committee's decision Tuesday. The new housing would be built on the edge of Gilo, a Jewish neighborhood in south Jerusalem, on land Palestinians in the nearby village of Wallajeh say was taken from them. Gilo is home to 40,000 Israelis.

"At a time when we are working to relaunch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult," said a statement from White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. "Neither party should engage in efforts or take actions that could unilaterally preempt, or appear to preempt, negotiations."

Jerusalem has been an issue in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks for years. Israel annexed the parts of Jerusalem it captured in 1967 and built neighborhoods now populated by about 180,000 Jews. Palestinian leaders, who want to redivide the city and make its eastern part the capital of a future state, have refused to resume talks unless Israel halts the growth of those neighborhoods and of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. U.S.-brokered talks collapsed last December.

The Obama administration's efforts to restart the negotiations hit an impasse in recent weeks. After months of failure to secure a halt to Israeli housing construction in the disputed neighborhoods and the West Bank, the administration is now urging the Palestinians to go back to talks without an explicit freeze, even as it presses Israel to observe an informal one.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the planned expansion of Gilo shows the Obama administration's impotence. "It is meaningless to resume negotiations when this goes on," he said.

Netanyahu's office responded by restating his willingness to impose "the greatest possible restraint" on settlement growth in the West Bank to facilitate a new round of talks. But the statement said, "Jerusalem is Israel's capital and will remain as such."

That position is universally rejected by other countries, which regard Jewish neighborhoods in the city's annexed parts and the West Bank settlements as illegal and an impediment to peace.

Britain and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joined in condemning the Gilo project.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said Israel's critics were, in effect, advocating a freeze based on religious discrimination against Jews.

Tuesday's decision opened the building project to a 60-day period of comments and objections from the public in advance of a final decision.

Israeli media, citing leaks by Israeli officials, broke news of the U.S.-Israeli dispute over Gilo hours before the decision. Until then, the project was so obscure that Netanyahu "could easily have responded positively to U.S. concerns and quietly quashed or delayed it without any political cost," said Lara Friedman of Americans for Peace Now, an advocacy group opposed to Jewish settlements.

But with the Israeli leader now implicitly behind the project, she said, "it will require the investment of serious political capital to stop."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-israel-housing18-2009nov18,0,2522742,print.story