IDF: More than 300,000 settlers live in West Bank

IDF: More than 300,000 settlers live in West Bank

There are now more than 300,000 residents living in Jewish West Bank settlements, according to a Israel Defense Forces Civil Administration report covering the first half of 2009. As of June 30, the settlements had 304,569 residents, an increase of 2.3 percent since January.

Most of the growth was in the most religious communities, including the ultra-Orthodox settlements. Modi'in Ilit gained 1,879 residents, a 4.5 percent increase. Beitar Ilit gained 1,074 residents, a 3.1 percent jump.

Excluding these two communities, the growth rate in the other Jewish settlements was 1.75 percent. Generally, growth rates are higher in the second half of the year, because many families move over the summer. Among local councils, Har Adar (near Jerusalem) saw 5.7 percent growth, and Alfei Menashe (near the Sharon region, north of Tel Aviv) reported a 2.7 percent increase. Kedumim recorded 2.1 percent; Emanuel, 1.2 percent; and Kiryat Arba, 0.9 percent.

The report also reflects government restrictions on settlement construction. Population growth in settlements in high demand was relatively low. Ma'aleh Adumim, home to many young couples, saw a population increase of just 1 percent, as did Efrat, where professionals and American immigrants often seek housing. The population of Hashmonaim, also a destination for many American newcomers, increased by 1.1 percent. Ofra grew by 1.2 percent. Karnei Shomron had a population increase of 0.2 percent - another 15 residents. Ariel grew by less than 0.1 percent.

The report also noted a 4.4 percent increase - 425 people - in settlers living outside municipal areas. However, these figures do not include all of the residents of unauthorized outposts, as some are regarded as residents of adjoining settlements. The highest growth rates by percentage were in small settlements such as Itamar, Elon Moreh and Kfar Tapuah.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1103125.html

By Chaim Levinson, Haaretz Settlements Correspondent
27/07/2009

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On Silwan...

Activists say Israel gave key site to settlers 

by Leigh Baldwin for the AFP Thu Jul 23, 4:17 am ET   

Yahoo News

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel has handed control over much of a key Palestinian area in annexed east Jerusalem to hardline settler groups in a creeping takeover kept away from public scrutiny, a report by an activist group said on Thursday. 

Government bodies have transferred both private Palestinian property and national parks in the Silwan neighbourhood outside the walls of the Old City to the settler organisation Elad, said Ir Amim, a non-profit group specialising in Jerusalem issues.

"It was done in the dark, in flagrant violation of the rules of good government and in some cases in violation of the law, without open and official decisions by the government or Knesset and without public discussion, inquiry or scrutiny," said the report entitled "Shady Dealings in Silwan."

Elad is dedicated to expanding Jewish ownership in Arab areas of east Jerusalem, which Israel captured from Jordan in 1967 and annexed in a move not recognised by the international community.

In Silwan, Elad has acted as an arm of the government for the past 20 years to gain control over a quarter of the land along its main thoroughfare, Wadi Hilweh or City of David.

"Silwan is a keystone to a sweeping and systematic process whose aim is to gain control of the Palestinian territories that surround the Old City, to cut the Old City off from the urban fabric of east Jerusalem and to connect it to Jewish settlement blocs" in the northeast, it said.

Elad's impact in Silwan is hard to miss -- dominating the city's poorest neighbourhood is a gleaming new visitors' centre and the Walls of Jerusalem national park, an archaeological exhibition.

In theory the park is owned by the government, but the operator is Elad.

"The site is technically run by the Nature and Parks Authority but all the tour guides are actually Elad people," says Ir Amim activist Orly Noy.

"People arrive here thinking they are at a regular government-run tourist site. What they are actually hearing is the settlers' agenda."

The Parks Authority entrusted the running of the site to Elad in 1997 in what the report said was an opaque transaction instead of an open tender as required by law.

When the National Antiquities Authority discovered that important archaeological remains had been transferred to settlers, it objected and in 1999 the move was overturned in the High Court.

But despite this verdict, the Parks Authority in 2002 handed control of the area back to Elad.

Elad wants to turn the Arab neighbourhood, where it says the palace of the biblical King David once stood, a claim disputed by most archaeologists, into a new Jewish heartland.

Such a move could spark violence, as Silwan's location makes it a potential tinderbox in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It lies outside the walls of Al-Haram Al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary known to Jews as the Temple Mount, which is Judaism's holiest and Islam's third-holiest site and where a change in the status quo could provoke conflict.

"It's like giving matches to pyromaniacs," says Noy.

Elad's hold on Silwan extends far beyond the walls of the park, with white and blue Israeli flags fluttering over several homes once owned by Palestinians.

Some properties were simply sold to Jewish groups. But the report said others were often acquired by dubious means, including using forged documents.

Elad was founded and run by David Be'eri, a former deputy commander of an elite special forces unit in the Israeli army.

With Elad, he runs a ring of agents, including local Palestinians and at least one police officer, to scout opportunities to buy Arab houses, probing for weak points such as disputes between neighbours or debts.

Since the late 1980s Be'eri has worked with the Jewish National Fund (JNF) -- a quasi-governmental body that buys and develops land for Jewish settlement -- to evict Palestinians in Silwan, the report said.

Under an unwritten pact, Elad would agree to cover compensation for Silwan families which the JNF would then evict and then allow Elad to lease the homes to settlers at token cost, it said.

Elad has not moved settlers into all the houses it has bought for fear of sparking violence, the report said.

"If they moved in you would see blue and white all across Silwan," Noy said.

Elad representatives declined to comment on the report.

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On Moskowitz...

Moskowitz Dividing Jerusalem With His Millions 


By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH 
July 21, 2009

Irving Moskowitz may just be one of the biggest threats to the Palestinians in history. He is not an Israeli Prime Minister or leader of an Israeli party; he does not even live in Israel. He is American – albeit Jewish – but he has singlehandedly helped put several areas of east Jerusalem in the hands of Jewish settlers, stripping the owners of these homes and lands of their ancestral birthright. 

Moskowitz, as many already know, is a multi-millionaire who has no qualms about making public his positions on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He was opposed to the Oslo Accords, does not support peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and thinks east Jerusalem should be filled with Jews.

Someone like Moskowitz doesn't only talk the talk, however. This man certainly walks the walk, pouring in tens of millions of dollars into illegal settlement takeovers in the Palestinian eastern side of the city, irrespective of who he makes homeless, jobless and penniless. Some of this tycoon's projects include the construction of two mega hotels in east Jerusalem, the city of David, adjacent to the Old City and settlement construction in the Palestinian neighborhood of Ras Al Amoud. Furthermore, Moskowitz funds one of the most infamous settler movements in Jerusalem today, Ateret Cohanim, which is responsible for the eviction of families from their homes in the Muslim quarter of the walled city and Sheikh Jarrah, two Palestinian areas of Jerusalem.

Most recently, Moskowitz's name popped up again, this time as part of the Israeli municipality's decision to okay the construction of 20 new housing units in the area the Shepherd Hotel in Sheikh Jarrah. The hotel, originally owned by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Sheikh Amin Husseini was "purchased" by Moskowitz in 1985 and who has since tried to obtain a building license for his project. Only under the most recent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has he been able to obtain the license and has contracted an Israeli company to draw out the blueprints for the new settlement project.

The endeavor, like all of Moskowitz's other enterprises, is not philanthropic in nature. That is, he is not trying to provide shelter for Israel's poor or underprivileged citizens nor does he want to bolster peace prospects in Jerusalem so that all of its citizens and residents could live in dignity and in peace. On the contrary, Moskowitz aims not to unite, but to divide. By funding these settlement projects, which always find backing from the Israeli government, regardless of east Jerusalem's international status as occupied territory, the Jewish millionaire hopes to prevent any possibility of the two peoples living together in the holy city. By embedding hostile Israeli settlers in the heart of east Jerusalem, through false claims of ownership, eviction, home demolitions and land confiscation of the Palestinians, Moskowitz understands he is creating solid facts on the ground that will further solidify Israel's claim of Jerusalem as the eternal and unified capital of Israel.

He has the full backing of Israel's prime minister, for sure. When even the United States showed discontent with Israel's decision to push forward the settlement takeover in Sheikh Jarrah, Netanyahu was quick to lash back. As always, his defense was laced with claims of anti-Semitism.

"I can only imagine what would happen if someone were to suggest that Jews cannot live in certain neighborhoods in New York or in London or in Paris or in Rome," Netanyahu said in response to US calls to halt the settlement plan. "There would undoubtedly be a loud international outcry."

The only difference is that we are not in New York, where all residents live under US sovereignty and have equal rights to purchasing and residing in the place they choose. In Jerusalem, the world over recognizes the eastern sector of the city as occupied territory, the future of which is to be determined in final status talks. Hence, Israel has no right to alter the status quo of the city, a concept which it has clearly violated time and again.

Even Netanyahu knows this. He may be one of the most impertinent leaders of our time, but he is not stupid. Preventing the takeover of Palestinian land in an occupied area is hardly anti-Semitic nor is it comparable to the "Jews living in New York" analogy. It is all about Israel digging its claws into east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians claim as their future capital.

To be honest, east Jerusalem is already pockmarked with Israeli settlements. Today, there are hardly a few hundred meters of Palestinian area in Jerusalem not interrupted by an Israeli flag or an army watch post signifying Jewish-only territory. This is the most noticeable the closer one moves towards the city's center where Israel's clutch is the tightest. So, all the way from Ras Al Amoud in the southeast to the Old City in the heart, to Silwan in the south and Sheikh Jarrah moving north, Israeli settlers have marred the overall landscape of Palestinian Jerusalem. The Hebrew University sits on the Mount of Olives, right next to the Maqassed and Augusta Victoria Hospitals and the Mamilla Shopping Mall is right outside the Old City's Jaffa Gate, steps away from the Palestinian souvenir shops just inside.

While the US call for a halt to the settlement compound on the ruins of the Grand Mufti's Shepherd Hotel is undoubtedly positive, it may be too little too late. If it were not for the US's acquiescence over the years towards Israel's illegal colonization of east Jerusalem, people like Irving Moskowitz would never have had a leg to stand on. Now the reality on the ground spells out real people and real lives, something Netanyahu never hesitates to exploit. Jews, he says, have a right to live anywhere they want in Israel, including east Jerusalem.

If President Barak Obama remains adamant in his stance towards Jewish settlements in Jerusalem, all his administration has to do then is impose one simple concept: reciprocity. Just as Netanyahu says Jews have a right to reclaim lands he says they own in east Jerusalem, Palestinians should be able to reclaim their lands in west Jerusalem from which they were exiled in 1948. After Palestinian refugees return to their homes stolen from them in 1948, then perhaps we will have something to talk about.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Program at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mip@miftah.org.

http://www.miftah.org

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Israeli Settlement Funding Continues...

Israel keeps Major funding of settlements 

PressTV July 21, 2009 

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=101273&sectionid=351020202  

The Israeli government continues major funding of settlement expansions in the occupied territories amid increased international pressure aimed at halting the illegal activity. 

Tel Aviv "allocates 4.1 percent (of) its total budget for municipalities to settlements although they constitute just 3.1 percent of the total Israeli population," according to a study published by the Macro Center of the Israeli European Policy Network.

 

"Not only do settlements distort priorities of the Israeli government's decision-making process on economic, political and social issues, the government of Israel proactively funds more than half of their existence too," said the center's director Roby Nathanson.

 

"While Israeli municipalities as a whole receive 34.7 percent of their income from the government of Israel and obtain another 64.3 percent from their own income, settlement municipalities obtain 57 percent from the government, and only 42.8 percent from their own income," the report found.

 

Based on the report, the settler population is also growing more than three times faster than the population of Israel proper.

 

Israel has repeatedly been called to halt the construction of illegal settlements including the so-called "natural growth" in existing settlements in the occupied West Bank.

 

The US, Russia, and the EU have called on Tel Aviv to halt all settlement activities in order to re-launch stalled peace talks with the Palestinians.

 

Israel, however, continues refusing to freeze settlement build-ups in the occupied territories.

 

SB/MB/DT

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France on Settlements...

Paris Summons Israeli Ambassador over Settlements 

July 21, 2009 The Palestinian Chronicle 

France summoned the Israeli ambassador in Paris to demand a halt to 'illegal' expansion of Jewish settlements in east al-Quds (Jerusalem). 

The move on Tuesday came as Russia lent its voice to the mounting international outcry against the planned construction of 20 apartments in Sheikh Jarrah, a week after the United States summoned Israel's top envoy to Washington.

"The Israeli ambassador in Washington was summoned and the ambassador in Paris [Daniel Shek] has now been summoned to the foreign ministry," Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told reporters at a weekly news conference.

"We are going to discuss the continuing construction of settlements…These activities must be stopped. Otherwise there will be no chance to found an independent Palestinian state that administers itself and also guarantees Israel's security," he stressed, adding that the settlements went against both international and Israeli law.

President Nicolas Sarkozy also highlighted "the need for a complete freeze" of settlement activity in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, during a meeting with his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak in Paris.

President Barack Obama's administration reportedly summoned Israel's ambassador in Washington, Michael Oren, last week to convey their objections to the plans.

Kouchner said this betrayed a "clear division" between the US and Israel over “colonization in a precise district of east Jerusalem."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected calls to halt what the international community has slammed as 'illegal' settlements on occupied Palestrina territory.

He claims Israel's sovereignty over al-Quds is “non-negotiable” as “unified Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people and the state of Israel.” 

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US Denies Sanctions on Israel

US says sanctions on Israel 'premature' 

Jul. 21, 2009 Herb Keinon and jpost.com , THE JERUSALEM POST

It is "premature" to talk about placing financial sanctions on Israel to get it to stop building beyond the green line, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Tuesday night. 

Asked at a press briefing whether the US was considering putting financial pressure on Israel to get it to comply with US demands, Wood said: "It's premature to talk about that."

"What we're trying to do," he said, "is to create an environment which makes it conducive for talks to go forward."

US Middle East envoy George Mitchell was working hard on this, Wood said. "And what we all need to do in the international community is support this effort, and that means Americans, that means Arabs and Israelis, [must] do what they can to kind of foster a climate in which the two sides can come together and negotiate their differences peacefully so that we can get to that two-state solution."

Meanwhile, senior White House adviser Dennis Ross will join an already crowded list of top US officials traveling to Israel next week, a step interpreted positively in Jerusalem as an attempt by the Obama administration to engage more constructively with Jerusalem.

Diplomatic officials confirmed that Ross, who last month was named special assistant to the president for the Central Region - a huge region taking in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, Pakistan and South Asia - will pay his first visit to Israel next week in his new role. He moved to the White House from the State Department, where he had a much narrower portfolio.

Ross will come in the same week as Mitchell, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and National Security Adviser James Jones, who will be coming with some 10 members of his staff.

Asked about the sudden surge in high-level US visitors, one senior Israeli diplomatic official said, "It's about time. It's much better that the two countries discuss the issues between them face-to-face, and not through the media."

US President Barack Obama has come under some criticism recently for ignoring Israel while trying to court the Arab world. These high-level visits, another senior Israeli official said, underscore the importance Washington continues to attribute to its relations with Jerusalem.

The official said these visits were not tied to the recent spat over plans to build 20 apartments in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in east Jerusalem, although this issue was sure to be raised.

While the focus of the talks with Mitchell, scheduled to arrive Sunday, is expected to be the diplomatic process with the Palestinians and the settlement issue, the discussions with Gates, who will arrive Monday for a brief stopover of some six hours, are expected to concentrate on Iran. According to Israeli officials, the US wants to be updated on Israel's thinking on the matter.

Jones's visit will focus on the US-Israeli strategic dialogue, and the reason he is bringing such a large staff, Israeli officials said, is that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's national security adviser, Uzi Arad, wants to try to model his own NSC after the US paradigm.

Ross, who served as former US president Bill Clinton's senior Middle East negotiator, is expected to discuss the whole gamut of issues now impacting US-Israeli relations.

On the brink of this flood of top US officials, one senior Israeli source noted with satisfaction that the US administration's response to Netanyahu's pledge to continue building in east Jerusalem despite American opposition was relatively low-key.

US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley addressed the matter Monday at the daily press briefing in the State Department, saying the US believed the issue of construction in east Jerusalem "should be subject to permanent-status negotiations, and we are concerned that unilateral actions taken by the Israelis or the Palestinians cannot prejudge the outcome of these negotiations."

He said the US position on this matter was not new.

But if the US response was relatively low-key, Russia, France and Germany all called on Israel on Tuesday to stop all settlement construction, including construction in east Jerusalem, creating what one Israeli source called "unpleasant momentum."

"The settlement should be stopped immediately in line with the road map," AFP quoted Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko as saying, in reference to the plan to build 20 housing units in Sheikh Jarrah.

The French media reported that its Foreign Ministry would summon Israeli Ambassador Daniel Shek to protest the plan, and in Germany Reuters quoted Ruprecht Polenz, a senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's party, as saying Israel ran the risk "of gradually committing suicide as a democratic state" if it did not stop the construction.

Polenz, head of the German parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Rheinische Post daily, "Israel is overlooking the fact that neither Palestinians nor Arab states will agree to a solution without east Jerusalem."

Despite these responses, sources in the Prime Minister's Office said Netanyahu was determined to continue construction in east Jerusalem as he saw fit.

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon responded to the criticism, saying in a statement from his office that Israel acted "according to the national interests that are important to it."

This was especially true, he said, in relation to Jerusalem, where its rights, including the right to build, were inviolable.

In a related development, Alexander Saltanov, Russia's deputy foreign minister and special presidential representative for the Middle East, held talks in Jerusalem Tuesday with President Shimon Peres and Foreign Ministry director-general Yossi Gal.

Upon arriving Monday, he met with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. On Wednesday he will go to Ramallah for talks with the Palestinian Authority leadership.

Saltanov regularly visits the region, and prior to arriving in Israel held meetings in Damascus.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443870665&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

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Update on Removal of Outpost

IDF: No plans for lightning evacuation of outpost  

By Yoel Marcus, Haaretz.com  

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1101796.html  

July 21, 2009  

The Israel Defense Forces said on Tuesday that it had received no orders from the political echelons for a lightning evacuation of West Bank outposts, and denied having begun preparatory operations for such a move. 

Amid the increased tension between the United States and Israel surrounding construction in the settlements, Haaretz learned that the Israel Defense Forces was drafting a plan to evacuate 23 illegal outposts in one day.

 

"The IDF is subordinate to the political echelon and implements its instructions, but such an order was never received," the IDF Spokesman's Office said in a statement.

 

The army was also said to be conducting preparations to forcibly evacuate the outposts in plan formulated by the security establishment, with the knowledge of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

 

The statement on Tuesday, however, described the drills in question as preparation for daily confrontations in the West Bank, and not designed to contend with imminent outpost evacuations.

 

In talks with the United States, Israel had said it would clear out 23 outposts built after March 2001 that it had told the George W. Bush administration it would evacuate five years ago.

 

So far as is known, a timetable has not been set for the evacuations.

 

 

Police on Monday evacuated three illegal structures in various outposts. In response, settlers torched Palestinian olive groves, threw stones at Palestinian cars and blocked roads around the West Bank.

 

Two Palestinians were lightly hurt, as were a soldier and a settler. Five settlers were arrested.

 

The first joint exercise to prepare for the large-scale evacuation was carried out last week. It involved the Border Police, the police and the IDF.

 

The drill, led by the Border Police, was held at a military base more than a week ago, with police and IDF participation. Senior officers, including the IDF's West Bank commander Noam Tichon, watched the drill.

 

The forces practiced handling mass riots and evacuating settlers entrenched in an outpost.

 

Police sources told Haaretz, "The difference between this drill and former ones is the extent of the forces that took part and the participation of the IDF and police along with Border Police."

 

Defense Minister Ehud Barak has promised to clear out these 23 outposts, but said it was a matter of law enforcement and was not addressed in talks with the Americans over freezing settlement construction.

 

In practice, though, the political leaders know that evacuating the outposts meets U.S. demands, and that it will ultimately be part of a final deal. Associates of Barak say they sense the parties are close to an understanding, and that the first step will be evacuating the outposts. However, these statements were made before the crisis erupted over construction in East Jerusalem.

 

The IDF will try to keep its evacuation preparations, particularly dates, as foggy as possible. IDF leaders realize many soldiers identify with the settlers, and could potentially leak the plans to evacuation opponents. Therefore, as few people as possible will be let in on the plans.

 

While the IDF and the police managed to surprise settlers in December when they evacuated a house in Hebron, it will be more difficult this time around, because many more sites are slated for evacuation, and a large number of forces will have to be involved.

 

Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi has said several times that he prefers the IDF not be on the front lines of evacuating outposts, and that police units specializing in crowd control should do the job. 

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Update on Ofra

Israel weighs confiscation of more Palestinian land 

By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz.com 

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1101683.html July 21, 2009  

The government is considering confiscating privately-owned Palestinian land near the West Bank settlement of Ofra, contrary to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's pledge during his Bar-Ilan speech not to take such actions. 

This announcement was made by the state prosecutor, in response to a High Court petition filed by a resident of the West Bank town Ein Yabrud and the human rights association Yesh Din.

 

The parties were seeking the demolition of a sewage treatment plant built illegally on the town's land by the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council. The announcement, signed by senior assistant state prosecutor Avi Licht, says the state is considering turning the site into a regional sewage treatment plant that would serve both Ofra and the nearby Palestinian communities.

 

"Assuming the project can be advanced, the legality of confiscating the land will be examined," the document says.

 

"It would be unthinkable to erect the plant on private Palestinian land without permission or an official confiscation order, and without the legally required plan and building permits. This is why a demolition order has been issued for the existing structure," Licht writes.

 

Legally, and in keeping with Supreme Court rulings, the Palestinian communities must be connected to the plant. The court has ruled that the state cannot confiscate land unless it will serve the entire public, including those whose lands have been confiscated.

 

However, connecting Ein Yabrud to the plant requires a pumping facility, which would cost millions of shekels to build.

 

"After the legal picture was clarified and a demolition order was issued for the facility, an order was given to suspend state funds to the plant, and it has not received a permit to connect it to the power supply. The sewage treatment plant was initiated by the Shomron Union for Ecology and the Environment Ministry, after the settlement's sewage polluted the environment and endangered groundwater sources," the announcement says.

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From the Mondoweiss blog...

Wait, Bibi-- Palestinians can't go buy property in West Jerusalem

Earlier today we posted Netanyahu's equal-opportunity-sounding talking point, that Arabs can buy property in West Jerusalem, so why can't Jews buy in East Jerusalem? Well Lara Friedman at Peace Now blows the argument out of the water:...

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/07/wait-bibi-palestinians-cant-go-buy-property-in-west-jerusalem-.html 

Link to the blog post.

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Overview on Positions on Settlements

U.S. tells Israeli to halt East Jerusalem Building 

By Avi Issacharoff, Haartez Correspondent and Haaretz Service 

July 19, 2009 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1101155.html  

The United States has told Israel it must halt an East Jerusalem construction project in accordance with the Obama administration's demands for a complete freeze on settlement building, Israeli radio stations reported on Sunday.

The State Department summoned Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren over the weekend to advise him that the project developed by American millionaire Irving Moskowitz should not go ahead, according to both Israel Radio and Army Radio.

 

Moskowitz, an influential supporter of Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem, purchased the Shepherd Hotel in 1985 and plans to tear it down and build housing units in its place. The hotel is located near a government compound that includes several government ministries and the national police headquarters.

 

The approval, granted by the Jerusalem municipality earlier this month, allows for the construction of 20 apartments plus a three-level underground parking lot.

 

In response, Oren told the State Department that Israeli construction in East Jerusalem was no different than in any other part of the country.

 

Jerusalem could not be considered along the same lines as settlements, he said, adding that Israel would not accede to this demand.

 

The Jerusalem municipality issued a statement following the report, saying the purchase was legal and it had acted with full transparency in granting building permits.

 

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy had no immediate comment.

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ministers at the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday that Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem was not a matter up for discussion, no matter the U.S. requests.

 

Netanyahu told ministers at the weekly cabinet meeting that Jerusalem is the united capital of Israel and that all citizens are allowed to purchase property in any part of the city they choose.

 

This is the policy of an open city, he said, and Israel would not accept a stance that counters that civil right.

 

The international community considers Jewish neighborhoods in the east of the city to be settlements and an obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

 

Israel regards communities in the area annexed during the 1967 Six-Day war to be a legitimate part of the state.

 

Meanwhile, Palestinian officials said on Saturday they were worried the U.S. administration was close to an interim agreement with Israel on settlement construction.

 

According to information that has reached the Palestinian Authority, Israel will not completely halt construction in the settlements but will limit it drastically to the point of almost stopping it. In exchange, Arab countries will implement previously discussed concessions - among them, allowing Israeli planes to cross their airspace and opening diplomatic missions.

 

The PA will discuss this with U.S. special Middle East envoy George Mitchell in Ramallah this week.

 

Sources in the PA said that "half-solutions" are unacceptable and that Israel must completely stop construction in the settlements.

 

The Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam reported on Saturday that Mitchell is to inform PA President Mahmoud Abbas by phone that the U.S. administration has been unable to obtain Israel's consent to stop construction completely.

 

Senior Palestinian officials have been following ambiguous statements made by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has hinted that an agreement with Israel is in the offing.

 

Senior officials say American assent to even limited Israeli construction in the settlements would once again damage the American position as an honest broker in the Middle East. U.S. President Barack Obama told American Jewish leaders last week that his clear position against settlements has strengthened his position as an honest broker with the Arabs.

 

Over the past few days, Abbas has reiterated concerns over continued construction in the settlements, saying he would not renew negotiations with Israel as long as such construction persisted. However, senior Palestinian officials said that soon after the Obama administration reaches an agreement with Israel and the Arab countries, it intends to renew negotiations on a final status agreement. If the PA refuses to join, as Abbas apparently articulated, it will appear to be obstructing the peace process.

 

In any case, the PA will probably seek to postpone talks until after the Sixth Fatah Congress and general elections, scheduled for August 4. Sources in the PA said talks between Hamas and Fatah, which were to resume between July 25-28, would probably be postponed until after the Fatah Congress opens in Bethlehem.

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