ISRAEL has approved 942 new settlement units for occupied East Jerusalem, a local official said Tuesday, on the eve of the scheduled resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians.
The units are in addition to the more than 1,000 settlement homes approved by Israel on Sunday, in a move that has angered the Palestinians and drawn fire from the international community.
‘The Jerusalem municipality has approved a construction plan for 942 homes in Gilo,’ an existing settlement in East Jerusalem, deputy mayor Yosef Pepe Alalu said.
‘This is a terrible decision which is a provocation against the Palestinians, the Americans and the whole world who oppose continued settlement building,’ the left-wing municipal councillor said.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, who convinced the two sides to return to the negotiating table after a three-year hiatus, urged the Palestinians ‘not to react adversely’ to Israel’s approval on Sunday for new homes in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The last round of direct talks broke down when Israel refused to halt its settlement construction on occupied Palestinian territory.
Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now said the Jerusalem municipality was also mulling the construction of another 300 homes at a later stage.
‘The government is doing all it can to sabotage peace talks even before they’ve started,’ Peace Now’s spokesman told AFP.
More than 200,000 Israeli settlers live in East Jerusalem, which was annexed by Israel following the Six Day War of 1967, when Israel also occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights.
US Secretary of State John Kerry urged Palestinians ‘not to react adversely’ to Israel’s announcement of new settlement building, stressing the need to return to the negotiating table.
With a fresh peace dialogue in its early stages after a three-year hiatus, the approval of almost 1,200 housing units in annexed east Jerusalem and elsewhere in the West Bank on Sunday infuriated Palestinian officials.
The plan was swiftly followed by Israel announcing it would release 26 veteran Palestinian prisoners ahead of a resumption of peace talks on Wednesday in Jerusalem.
As some Israeli ministers criticised the government’s prisoner release, Palestinians denounced the settlement plan, which Washington and the European Union said on Monday was illegal and detrimental to peace efforts.
Kerry, on a trip to Colombia on Monday, sought to neutralise the atmosphere in the Middle East, noting that the settlement plans were ‘to some degree expected,’ and calling for both sides to resolve their major issues.
‘We have known that there was going to be a continuation of some building in certain places, and I think the Palestinians understand that,’ the chief US diplomat said in Bogota.
But he added: ‘I think one of the announcements was outside of that level of expectation, and that’s being discussed right now.’
Kerry, who took the lead in securing last month’s resumption of peace talks, said he did not expect the latest developments to become a ‘speed bump,’ but he reiterated that the United States regards all settlements as illegal.
‘What this underscores, actually, is the importance of getting to the table… quickly, and resolving the questions with respect to settlements, which are best resolved by solving the problem of security and borders,’ Kerry told reporters.
‘Once you have security and borders solved, you have resolved the question of settlements. And so I urge all the parties not to react adversely or to provoke adversely, whichever party may do one or the other in any way,’ he said.
‘With the negotiation of major issues, these kinds of hot-point issues really become much easier to – in fact, they are eliminated as the kind of flashpoints that they may be viewed as today.’
Kerry said he had put in a call to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who underwent surgery at the weekend, and that he expected to speak to him very soon.
The 26 prisoners constitute the first batch of a total of 104 long-term Palestinian and Israeli Arab inmates to be freed in four stages, depending on progress in the talks.
PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat underlined the importance of the prisoner release for the renewed peace initiative to continue.
‘We hope to put into effect what we’ve agreed on… we hope for the release of 104 prisoners. Each will return to his house. This is what we’ve agreed on,’ he told Israeli Arabic-language radio.
‘There is a clear understanding between us and the Americans and Israelis. Any change (in that) will mean the agreement is off the table.’
Media reports have implied that the construction announcement was meant to appease Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners, who oppose the release of prisoners but fervently promote settlement construction.
Palestinian officials slammed the settlement announcement as a move aimed at ‘preventing’ peace talks.
‘It is clear that the Israeli government is deliberately attempting to sabotage US and international efforts to resume negotiations by approving more settlement units three days before the… Palestinian-Israeli meeting,’ Palestinian negotiator Mohammed Shtayeh said.
Russia described the Israeli move as ‘a counterproductive step that complicates the atmosphere of the talks’.
But a spokesman for Netanyahu insisted that the new settlement units were ‘in areas that will remain part of Israel in any possible future peace agreement.’
‘It changes nothing,’ Mark Regev added.
Hamas on Monday said peace talks with Israel were ‘futile,’ repeating its rejection of negotiations that are due to resume between Palestinians and Israelis this week.
‘We renew our rejection of these futile talks, and consider them purely a means for the occupation (Israel) to look good to the international community,’ senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar told a news conference in Gaza.
President Mahmud Abbas and his negotiating team ‘have no legitimacy’ to represent the Palestinian people in talks, Zahar said.
‘We call on the Palestinian people to unite in confronting the crime that is the peace talks,’ he added.
The Islamist movement last month rejected a return to Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, after US Secretary of State John Kerry announced a resumption of negotiations.
