World Jewish News

The Gilo neighborhood in southern Jerusalem.

Israeli government planning committee approves new building in Jerusalem’s Gilo

An Israeli ministry planning committee on Monday approved a plan for the building of 1,200 apartments in the southern Jerusalem’s Gilo neighborhood which is located over the Green Line.
According to The Jerusalem Post, the plan includes 930 apartments for immediate construction and around 300 that could be built at a later time.
The move comes after last week’s green light for thousands of homes in Jerusalem’s ’s Givat Hamatos and Ramat Shlomo neighborhoods
The planned construction in Jerusalem and in the West Bank, especially in the E1 area linking Jerusalem to the settlement of Maale Adumim, has come under intense international criticism.
On Monday, Energy and Water Minister Uzi Landau said that Israel will continue to build beyond the Green Line despite international condemnation, echoing comments made last week by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“What we have to care about, before anything else, is Jewish sovereignty in Jerusalem,” said Landau, rejecting international condemnation of Israel’s plans.
“Just to make it unequivocally clear to anyone: Israel will continue and do in Jerusalem what the British do in London and what the French do in Paris and what our friends in America do in Washington,” he said.
Last week, all members of the United Nations Security Council, with the exception of the United States, condemned Israel for its construction plans, saying they “send a negative message and are undermining faith in its willingness to negotiate.”
The UN ambassadors of four EU member states in the Council, Britain, France, Germany and Portugal, said in a joint statement that their governments "strongly oppose" the Israeli construction.
"Israel's announcements to accelerate the construction of settlements send a negative message and are undermining faith in its willingness to negotiate," they said in a statement read by British ambassador Mark Lyall Grant.
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton last week called the Israeli government’s construction plans "extremely troubling", stressing that the plan for Givat Hamatos "would cut the geographic continuity between Jerusalem and Bethlehem." "I strongly oppose this unprecedented expansion of settlements around Jerusalem," she said.
Referring to a statement by EU Foreign Ministers earlier this month voicing "strong opposition" to settlement expansion, which, they said, "seriously undermine the prospects of a negotiated resolution of the conflict by jeopardizing the possibility of a contiguous and viable Palestinian state and of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states," Ashton warned that "in the light of its core objective of achieving the two-state solution," the EU will closely monitor the situation and its broader implications, and "act accordingly."
On Tuesday, at the official launch of the elections campaign of the Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu alliance, Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, ex-Foreign Minister and number 2 on the party’s list, announced that continued construction in East Jerusalem and West Bank settlements stood at the centre of the party’s plan.
“With God’s help we will continue to live and build in Jerusalem, which shall remain united under Israeli sovereignty,” Netanyahu said. “In recent years we did much to strengthen settlements, and we will continue to act to strengthen the settlemets.”
Meanwhile, Israeli radio reported that former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who has formed a new party "Hatnuah" in view of the January 22 early elections, might be willing to join forces in a future Netanyahu-led coalition. This would let her return to her former post.
The report came amid increasing indications that Lieberman, who heads the Yisrael Beiteinu party, would not be able to be a minister for the foreseeable future due to the ongoing legal investigation against him.

by: Yossi Lempkowicz

EJP