Israel greenlights 1,600 new houses illegally built on Palestinian lands, in Jerusalem

JERUSALEM, March 9, 2010, (Xinhua) --

 The Israeli occupation government Interior Ministry on Tuesday said that it has approved the construction of 1,600 new housing units in a Jewish neighborhood in a disputed section of Jerusalem.

A spokeswoman of the ministry's Jerusalem district planning committee told Xinhua that the new project is to expand Ramat Shlomo, an ultra-Orthodox community located in the northern part of Jerusalem. She refused to specify whether the project is in East Jerusalem, yet the neighborhood does sit in the section of the holy city the Palestinians claim to be the capital of their future state, widely referred to as East Jerusalem.

Following the approval, the project is now in the process of public comment, which means the public has 60 days to file objections to the plan, reported local news service Ynet, adding that the objections will then be discussed by the committee.

The project is nothing less than a slap in the face at visiting U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who has just held warm talks with Israeli President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and urged the Jewish state to make bold moves toward realizing permanent peace with the Palestinians.

No public comments have been available from Biden. Ynet quoted sources as saying that the timing of the approval was coincidental and unrelated to Biden's visit.

Hours before Biden arrived in Israel on Monday, the Israeli Defense Ministry confirmed that it has given the go-ahead to 112 new houses in a settlement in the West Bank. The ministry said that the project was already approved by the previous administration, thus did not contradict an ongoing moratorium on settlement construction announced by the Netanyahu administration late last year.

Both projects were made public as U.S. special envoy George Mitchell was also in the region for peace-making efforts, who on Monday officially announced the commencement of Israeli- Palestinian indirect talks after a 15-month hiatus and called upon both sides to refrain from taking moves that might escalate tensions.

Late last year, the Netanyahu administration announced a 10- month partial freeze of settlement construction in the West Bank, which Israel dubbed a goodwill gesture aimed to help resume peace talks. Yet the Palestinians dismissed the move as insincere, and have stressed that no talks are possible before Israel completely halts Jewish construction both in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.

In a U.S.-pressured turn, the Palestinian leadership on Sunday gave President Mahmoud Abbas the green light to conduct indirect talks with Israel for four months. Yet they meanwhile reiterated that Israel must totally freeze settlement expansion before any possible resumption of direct talks.

Editor: Mu Xuequan

Israel OKs 1,600 more homes in Jerusalem al-Quds

Press TV, Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:32:08 GMT

The Israeli occupation government has approved the construction of hundreds of new housing units in the occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds amid reports of US-led resumption of talks between Tel Aviv and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA).

Tel Aviv's interior ministry said in a statement that it had approved the building of 1,600 housing units for settlers in al-Quds, Israeli daily Haarerz reported.

The units will be constructed in addition to the ultra-Orthodox Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, expanding the settlement both to the east and to the south, according to the statement.

The Israeli announcement coincided with the visit by US Vice President Joe Biden who hailed the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian talks with US mediation through its Middle East envoy George Mitchell.

In meetings with Mitchell this week, the two sides agreed to resume 'peace' talks suspended since December 2008, Washington announced.

The talks remained stalled as Tel Aviv ignored Palestinian and initial US calls for a halt to settlement activities on Palestinian lands.

Observers emphasize that the PA's agreement with Washington's demand for the resumption of talks without any consideration to the long-standing demand to halt settlement activities, further emboldens the US-sponsored Israeli regime to push through all its illegitimate demands in the name of peace.

They also insist that the current trend will further aggravate the Palestinian situation leading to an all-out resistance against Tel Aviv.

Israel seized al-Quds along with the West Bank from Jordan in the Six Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in defiance of the international community.

The regime claims the holy city as its "eternal, indivisible" capital, while the Palestinian Authority wants at least the implementation of the UN resolutions, which assign the control of the eastern part of the city to them.

The Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas and its sizable followers, however, totally reject Tel Aviv's claim to al-Quds and insist that the holy city belongs to Palestinians in its entirety.

SB/MB