JERUSALEM — Israel has moved ahead with plans for new housing units in a contentious East Jerusalem neighborhood, awarding building contractors permission to begin construction, an Israeli newspaper reported yesterday.
The Israeli government on Thursday announced the names of five companies which won bids to build 307 new homes in the neighborhood of Har Homa, according to the report in the daily Haaretz. When first announced in December, plans for the units drew criticism from the US and marred peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians as they were getting under way.
The new development is especially significant because Israel announced this week that plans for an additional 350 units in the neighborhood would go ahead once the first 307 had been contracted out. Now that companies have won bids to begin construction, it seems likely the second project will go ahead, dramatically expanding the neighborhood.
“We condemn this move and we believe this will undermine our efforts to begin the negotiations on Jerusalem and settlements and other ... issues,” Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said yesterday.
Israel captured East Jerusalem in 1967 and annexed it, and has since built neighborhoods there that are home to 180,000 Israelis. This week, Israeli officials announced plans for more than 1,000 new units in East Jerusalem, and said construction would continue in the city.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said yesterday that Israel would negotiate Jerusalem’s future but had no intention of freezing construction there. “Israel makes a clear distinction between Jerusalem and the West Bank,” Regev said.
Mohammed Mar’i adds from Ramallah:
Olmert on Thursday ended a coalition crisis when he assured chairman of religious party Shas, Eli Yishai, that no secret talks on core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the division of Jerusalem, were being held between Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qorei. Israeli Army Radio quoted Olmert as saying that “Foreign Minister Livni and I are supervising the negotiations together. There have so far been no agreements on the fate of Jerusalem.”
Olmert promised the Shas leader that Jerusalem would not be discussed until the end of the negotiations with the Palestinians and that he would make sure Livni abided by that vow.
Asked about reports that Qorei personally confirmed that there had been secret talks about Jerusalem, Olmert responded: “With all due respect, Abu Ala (Qorei) doesn’t decide the agenda for the talks. We established a rule that Jerusalem would be discussed last and that’s clear to both sides.”
