YESTERDAY’S VISIT to Ramallah by US vice-president Joe Biden turned into an exercise in damage limitation following Israel’s announcement on Tuesday that 1,600 new homes would be built for Jews in east Jerusalem.
Mr Biden made clear Washington’s anger over the Israeli move. “It is incumbent on both parties to build an atmosphere of support for negotiations and not to complicate them . . . the decision by the Israeli government to advance planning for new housing units in east Jerusalem undermines that very trust, the trust that we need right now in order to begin profitable negotiations.”
Mr Biden promised that the US will hold both sides accountable for measures that jeopardise the indirect proximity talks expected to begin in the coming weeks.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Israel’s continued settlement construction, especially in Jerusalem, threatened talks before they get off the ground. “We call on Israel to cancel these decisions,” Mr Abbas said. “I call on the Israeli government not to lose a chance to make peace. I call on them to halt settlement building and to stop imposing facts on the ground, and to give the efforts of the Obama administration and senator Mitchell the chance to succeed.”
Israeli officials apologised over the embarrassing timing of the announcement during the vice-president’s visit. But there was no indication that the construction in Jerusalem will be put on hold.
The government of Benjamin Netanyahu insists the whole of Jerusalem, including eastern neighbourhoods annexed after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, will remain the indivisible capital of Israel. The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent state.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat accused Israel of “making it impossible to take a one centimetre step in the direction of reviving the peace process”.
Mr Biden said the Palestinians deserve a viable independent state with contiguous territory.
The Israeli move was also criticized by the European Union which called on Israel to reverse its decision and by UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon.
Qatar prime minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabr al-Thani warned that Israel’s position is placing the peace process in danger. “We demand peace . . . This is not a warning but advice for the leaders of Israel.”
The parents of American peace activist Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza in 2003, yesterday began proceedings in a Haifa court to sue the state of Israel.
The family are demanding €236,000 compensation from Israel’s defence ministry over Corrie’s death, an activist in the International Solidarity Movement.
Corrie (23) was trying to block a military bulldozer from demolishing a Palestinian home when the vehicle crushed her. An Israeli military court ruled that the incident was an accident, accepting the driver’s claim that he didn’t see the protester.