Building In East Jerusalem To Continue Regardless Of Any New Moratorium On Settlements

[Purveyor]

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel insisted Thursday it would keep building homes in disputed east Jerusalem, threatening to hold up a U.S.-proposed settlement construction moratorium designed to renew deadlocked Mideast peacemaking.

The contours of the moratorium deal, as presented by Israeli officials after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned from the U.S. last week, had appeared to be clearly agreed upon.

Washington, they said, had agreed to exclude the eastern sector of the holy city from the 90-day moratorium and there would be no further demands for construction curbs in the West Bank when the latest moratorium expired.

On Thursday, however, a day after Netanyahu said a deal was imminent, the U.S. still had not sent a promised letter detailing the understandings on the proposed moratorium.

In Washington, a senior Obama administration official said the U.S. and Israel were still "haggling" over details of the written assurances. The official said the most of the unresolved issues were relatively routine but added that it was unlikely that the letter would be finished Thursday.

http://www.lethbridgeherald.com/2010111852226/world-news/building-in-east-jerusalem-to-continue-regardless-of-any-new-moratorium-on-settlements.html

[Lil Missy]

1. Time to cut off all aid and support to Israel.

[whosinpower]

2. Maybe the US should

Make the EXACT offer to Abbas to return to the table regardless of settlement building.....

20 F-35 jets FREE - for a 90 day return to the talks. Palistine will agree to not approach the security council for the period of one year to unilaterally declare statehood.

Should Israel and Palistine come to a final settlement agreement - aid will be available 6-7 times what the incentive is.....

[azurnoir]

4. wtf "aid will be available 6-7 times what the incentive is....."

in Israel's case that would be $18 to $21 billion a year! nope do not think so the US can not afford that kind of incentive

[Jim Sagle]

3. Good.

[Violet_Crumble]

5. That Israel can't even bear not to build in occupied East Jerusalem for 90 days speaks volumes...

Israel isn't interested in a fair peace or in doing anything but continuing to expand while kicking Palestinians out of their homes. That the US continues to mollycoddle Israel is making the US look stupid and hypocritical...

[Crunchy Frog]

6. I can find no more clear indication than this

that the Israelis want a single state solution. A point will simply be reached where it will become a reality no matter how anyone feels about it. The settlement enterprise is ensuring that.

[oberliner]

7. You've completely misread the situation

The one-state solution is not at all popular in Israel.

What this does suggest, however, is that reaching a mutually acceptable arrangement with respect to Jerusalem is going to be tricky.

But we already knew that.

[Crunchy Frog]

8. Well, it's sort of like the person who desperately proclames

that he doesn't want to die of lung cancer, and yet clings to his four pack a day habit with everything he's got. I just can't take his protestations that seriously.

When somebody is doing something that will inevitably lead to a particular end while saying that they don't want that end to happen, I take their actions as meaning more than their words.

[oberliner]

9. I think most Israelis view E Jerusalem differently than they view the rest of the West Bank

That is why there is this separation established in the proposal from the US as well.

Most Israelis would be happy to close down all the settlements across the West Bank - but a lot of them don't see the E Jerusalem neighborhoods as settlements, but rather part of Jerusalem itself.