|
Occupied Jerusalem: Israel's deputy prime minister responded yesterday to US criticism of plans to build homes on occupied land in the Jerusalem area by saying parts of the city must be given to the Palestinians to avoid losing US support.
But Haim Ramon told Israeli radio Israel would not give up the Jewish colony where the building plan announced last week sparked Palestinian anger and a warning from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that it risked harming the relaunched peace process.
Israel has rejected criticism of a tender for some 300 more homes and other units at Har Homa, which Arabs call Abu Ghneim, on the grounds that it annexed the land and placed it inside Jerusalem city boundaries it drew after occupying the West Bank in 1967. That annexation is not recognised internationally.
Unrealistic
Ramon said, however, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's opponents were being unrealistic in hoping for US support for any peace plan that would give the Jewish state all the present Jerusalem municipality. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wants East Jerusalem as capital of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Ramon told Army Radio: "I am convinced all Jewish neighbourhoods, including Har Homa, should be under Israeli sovereignty and the Arab neighbourhoods should not be under Israeli sovereignty because they pose a threat to Jerusalem being the capital of Jewish Israel."
|
