国际英语新闻：Israel's housing plan in East Jerusalem overshadows peace talks

JERUSALEM, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) -- Israel gave green light on Tuesday to a plan to build some 900 new housing units in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, located beyond the Green Line.

There is international outrage at the Israeli plan to construct 900 homes in East Jerusalem the international community deems as occupied territory, and analysts say the move further overshadows the prospect of reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

    Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in 1967 and later annexed, are considered by international community as Israeli settlements and one of the main obstacles to Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that his government will not halt construction in Jerusalem, while the Palestinians want the eastern section of the holy city as capital of their future state.

    THE CASE FOR GILO

    Gilo lies on the southern edge of Jerusalem, just across a wide gorge from the outskirts of Bethlehem, a Palestinian town in the West Bank.

    It is a suburb of Jerusalem like any others -- dominated by low-rise apartment buildings clad in the local creamy-white Jerusalem stone. Its residents are a typical mix of native Israelis and immigrants from around the world.

    Unlike many of the Jewish settlers in the West Bank, the vast majority of people who live in Gilo chose to move there not for ideological reasons but because they saw it as an integral part of the city.

    Israeli Jews do not see Gilo as occupied territory. As a result, they do not oppose the construction of additional homes in an area that they say in no way impinges on the lives of the Arabs who live close to the neighborhood.

    The municipality says Israel is being singled out.

    "I do not presume that any government would demand a freeze of construction in the United States based on race, religion or gender and the attempt to demand it from Jerusalem is a double standard and inconceivable," Jerusalem's Mayor Nir Barkat said in a statement.

    He insists that all Jerusalem residents have the right to build wherever they want in the city, as long as appropriate planning permission is granted.

    Yet while most Jewish Israelis say they regard all of Jerusalem as their capital and some agree that Israel should not be building in the Arab-dominated, occupied parts of the city, there is virtual wall-to-wall agreement among them that this latest building plan should be allowed to go ahead.

    INTERNATIONAL OUTRAGE

    The U.S. administration said Tuesday that it was "dismayed" over Israel's approval to expand Jewish settlement construction in Jerusalem, voicing objection to Israeli practices in Jerusalem related to housing.

    "At a time when we are working to relaunch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, who is accompanying President Barack Obama on his Asia tour, said in a statement.

    "Neither party should engage in efforts or take actions that could unilaterally pre-empt, or appear to pre-empt, negotiations," said Gibbs, adding that Washington also objects to other Israeli practices in Jerusalem related to housing, including the continuing pattern of evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes.

    Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on Wednesday slammed Israel for approving the building of new homes in Gilo.

    "Israel, the occupying power, steals the occupied Palestinian land to build illegal settlements by force and violence," the PLO said in a statement sent to the media. "Israel undermines all international efforts to make fair peace in the region."

    Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian negotiator, said the Israel-Palestinian peace talks were aimed at creating a Palestinian statehood alongside Israel, "but Israel builds settlements on the same land that would be the ground of Palestinian state."

    "Israel should choose peace or settlements," Erekat told reporters.

    A statement issued Tuesday on behalf of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that he "deplored" the move.

    "He believes that such actions undermine efforts for peace and cast doubt on the viability of the two-state solution," the statement said.

    THE IMPACT

    Most of the international community believes the plan to expand Gilo beyond its current limits is a breach of international law, said Daniel Seidemann, a Jewish lawyer in Jerusalem who works with organizations that defend Palestinian rights in the city.

    In August 1980, the UN Security Council approved resolution 478.Endorsed by 14-0 with the Americans abstaining, the resolution declared the Israeli Jerusalem Law approved earlier in the same year null and void.

    That law stipulated that "Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel."

    Seidemann is more concerned about the impacts of the Gilo move than its legal status.

    "It dictates the outcome of a final-status agreement. It's a unilateral action and undermines the credibility of the peace process. That is what interests me and not the technicalities of international law," said Seidemann.

    Ira Sharkansky, professor emeritus of political science at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said that "No government of the United States has ever publicly recognized the legitimacy of Israeli construction over the Green Line, but Obama has increased the tempo."

    He argues that by objecting so publicly to the Gilo plan, Obama is making it even harder for the Israelis and Palestinians to begin talking to one another.

    "If the Obama administration has contributed anything to the peace process, it has hardened the position expressed by Palestinians, provoked the Israeli right to demand more settlement activity on both sides of the security barrier, and has caused dismay among the Israeli center and left," he said.

    Seidemann said the Israeli act of pushing ahead with construction in occupied territory is killing the peace process.

    Like all Jewish Israelis, he believed Gilo will remain in Israeli hands in any final-status agreement with the Palestinians.

    However, he said the expansion of Gilo, and consequently the expansion of Jerusalem in the area deemed as occupied territory by the international community, is highly problematic as Obama is trying to reboot the stalled peace process.