Occupied Jerusalem, July 20: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he would not take orders over Israeli colonisation of Occupied East Jerusalem, rejected a US demand to halt plans to build more homes for Jews in the disputed area.
New friction with Washington over the project to build 20 apartments in a part of Occupied Jerusalem captured by Israel in 1967 could deepen the most serious rift in relations between the two allies in a decade.
Israeli officials said the State Department had summoned Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, and told him plans for the construction approved this month by Israel’s Occupied Jerusalem municipality should be suspended.
“We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and buy [homes] anywhere in [Occupied] Jerusalem,” Netanyahu said, calling the city Israel’s united capital, a claim that is not recognised internationally.
“I can only imagine what would happen if someone would suggest Jews could not live in certain neighbourhoods of New York, London, Paris or Rome. There would certainly be a great international outcry,” he told reporters at the weekly cabinet meeting. “We cannot accept this edict in [Occupied] Jerusalem.”
Netanyahu and President Barack Obama are already at loggerheads over the US leader’s call for Israel to freeze Jewish colony construction on occupied land Palestinians want for a state.
Obama’s Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, due back in the region soon, and Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak have been trying to work out a deal that would include steps by Arab countries to normalise relations with Israel.
Responding to Netanyahu’s comments, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Israeli leader had to realise that colonies and peace “are two parallels that do not go together”.
Israel annexed Occupied East Jerusalem and declared all of the city its capital after the 1967 war.
-Agencies