国际英语新闻：U.S. envoy visits Middle East amid Israel's rejection against Jerusalem building halt

It is understood that last weekend Israel handed a letter from Netanyahu to Obama answering around a dozen questions on which the White House was seeking clarifications. While supposedly the answers on all the other issues were satisfactory, the key American demand regarding East Jerusalem was turned down by the Israeli premier.

The trouble as far as Netanyahu is concerned is that no Israeli prime minister, of any political persuasion, has ever stopped construction in what Israel sees as its indivisible capital, said Naji Shurab, a professor of political science Al-Azhar University in Gaza.

While the international community views East Jerusalem as occupied territory, and the Palestinians see it as the capital of any future state. Some 250,000 Arabs live on that side of the city.

Politically, Jerusalem is the red line that no Israeli leader has ever crossed. The vast majority of MPs in Netanyahu's hawkish coalition object to any territorial compromise in the city.

However, the Palestinians are insisting they will not come to the negotiating table if Israel continues to build in the eastern half of the city.

This has left Obama, Mitchell and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in something of a bind. Their discomfort was added to when Israel announced initial approval for a 1,600 housing unit project in a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem. The details were made public on the day U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden was in the city at the start of March.