Germany, France and EU president Sweden today joined Western nations pressing Israel to stop building settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank under a US-led effort to resume stalled peace talks.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has resisted international calls to freeze building in occupied territory, seemed to show a sign of flexibility as a newspaper reported a secret plan to remove two dozen unauthorised settler outposts.
Israel has long pledged to dismantle hilltop outposts that it never approved but has continued building larger settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, land it captured in a 1967 war, and where Palestinians want to build a future state.
Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said he would not resume peace talks with Israel, stalled since Israel elected Mr Netanyahu, a right-wing settler champion in February, unless all settlement construction stopped.
In Berlin, Ruprecht Polenz, a senior member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party, was quoted as saying Israel ran the risk "of gradually committing suicide as a democratic state" if it did not stop the construction.
Mr Polenz, head of the German parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, said: "Israel is overlooking the fact that neither Palestinians nor Arab states will agree to a solution without East Jerusalem."
The French Foreign Ministry summoned Israel's ambassador, Daniel Shek, in Paris, to protest against a planned Israeli housing project for East Jerusalem, which Israel considers part of its capital and which Palestinians also seek to make their capital.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem shortly after its capture, in a move never recognised internationally.
European Union president Sweden urged from Stockholm that Israel refrain from demolishing homes in East Jerusalem where thousands are threatened with displacement.
Reuters