Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hawkish coalition partners vowed on Thursday to keep building Jewish homes and demolishing unauthorised Palestinian homes in contested east Jerusalem — despite indications the Israeli leader has put the brakes on both.
The United States opposes both at this delicate time, when indirect talks between Israelis and Palestinians have just begun. The remarks by Mr Netanyahu’s partners show the thin tightrope he has to walk in trying to address the conflicting demands of his political allies at home and Israel’s strongest ally abroad.
On Thursday, Israeli interior minister Eli Yishai of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party reasserted his claim that Israel would never freeze construction in East Jerusalem — the sector of the holy city that Palestinians claim for a future capital. “We will build in every part of Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish people’s homeland for eternity, and I made this clear to our American friends and colleagues as well,” Mr Yishai, whose ministry is authorised to approve Jerusalem construction, told Shas’ Yom Leyom weekly.
He was also quoted as saying he plans to convene the Jerusalem planning committee soon to move ahead with new construction projects.
A day earlier, public security minister Yitzhak Aharonovich said demolitions of unauthorised Palestinian homes had been postponed in the past so as not to hurt efforts to renew peace talks. But demolitions, he said, would resume within days. “If there was a postponement, it’s no longer in effect,” he told Parliament.
The demolitions have become a hot-button issue because the Palestinians claim that Israel gives them no choice but to build in east Jerusalem without authorisation because it gives them very few permits.
Mr Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev and the US consulate in Jerusalem had no comment on the ministers’ remarks. But in a statement, defence minister Ehud Barak called on his fellow government ministers not to make inflammatory statements about Jerusalem.
“These statements hurt Israel’s interests with the US and the world in general,” said Mr Barak. —AP