Israelis push ahead with Jewish flats

Defying pressure from the international community, the government is building another 486 flats on disputed land.

The Jewish neighborhood of Pisgat Zeev in east Jerusalem, with the Shuafat refugee camp in the background and Israel's separation barrier running between them.

RAMALLAH // Israel is moving ahead with plans to build 486 flats in occupied East Jerusalem in defiance of international pressure to cease all such settlement construction before possible peace talks with the Palestinians. The Israel Lands Administration announced on Tuesday that it had chosen developers for the new building after a long delay. Originally, the administration had sought bids to build 668 flats, but for qualitative reasons, an ILA statement on Tuesday said the number had been reduced. The building is planned for Pisgat Zeev, a settlement on the north-eastern edge of Jerusalem. It will narrow the space between that settlement and nearby Palestinian areas. The announcement comes only days after the United States rebuked Israel for plans to build hundreds of other homes elsewhere in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. On Monday, Israel authorised 455 new housing units to be built in the occupied West Bank. Israel has said it would approve a burst in construction before considering a US-demanded halt to settlement activity. Yesterday, the European Union also registered its displeasure at this latest Israeli tender. In a statement, the EU said: "Settlements are illegal under international law and constitute an obstacle to peace." International pressure on Israel to end settlement construction has been growing in recent months. However, it has had little apparent result other than a speeding up of settlement construction and settlement tenders. Palestinians are increasingly concerned that verbal international pressure is not proving to be enough and that the international community needs to take further steps. "The international community has to revise its approach because it's not working," said Ghassan Khatib, head of the newly established Palestinian Government Media Centre. "I would like to see the international community, particularly the West, link some of its co-operation with Israel, diplomatic or financial, with Israel's willingness to end settlement construction." Mr Khatib said he saw no sign of an impending compromise that has been widely reported in the Israeli media between Israel and the United States over a settlement freeze. However, he said that without more concerted international pressure, there was a danger that Israel would simply use the intervening time to build as many settlements as it wanted until it felt it could enter into a settlement freeze. The issue of Israeli settlement building in occupied territory is crucial to hopes of any progress on Palestinian-Israeli talks. Establishing civilian settlements in occupied territory is illegal under international law, and the international community considers Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, a major impediment to peace. Yet since the 1970s, when the Israeli settlement project began, Israel has largely been allowed to carry on building settlements without consequence. Today there are nearly half a million Jewish settlers in occupied territory. That is more than a doubling of the number of settlers in 1993, when Palestinians and Israelis signed the Oslo accords, which were meant to bring a negotiated end to the Palestinian- Israeli conflict. The huge acceleration of settlement building since the signing of the Oslo accords is held by Palestinians as proof that Israel never negotiated in good faith, since negotiations were, among other things, meant to demarcate borders between two states while settlement building pre-empted such territorial negotiations. Indeed, continued settlement building during the Oslo negotiations and after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority is widely seen as a direct cause of the eruption of the second intifada in 2000. And while Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, negotiated final status issues with Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli prime minister, under the 2007 Annapolis process even while settlement building continued, he has repeatedly and consistently rejected doing the same with Benjamin Netanyahu, the current prime minister. Mr Abbas's decision to negotiate with Mr Olmert saw his popularity drop among Palestinians. Having recently strengthened his position within his own movement, Fatah, he would be loath to jeopardise his new-found popularity by again negotiating with Israel while settlement construction continues. Mr Abbas and Mr Netanyahu are due to attend a session of the UN General Assembly this month in New York. But hopes that the two, flanking Barack Obama, the US president, will announce a resumption of peace talks seem remote for as long as settlement construction continues. "I very much doubt that it will be possible to resume negotiations as long as settlement tenders continue to be issued," Mr Khatib said. "The period between now and the New York meeting will be very important, but so far I detect no change in the position of any of the players." [e-mail]