Israel's Top Diplomat Scorns EU Rebuke on Jerusalem Settlement Expansion

Israel's top diplomat scorns EU rebuke on Jerusalem settlement

October 20, 2012

Reuters - Israel's foreign minister on Saturday dismissed criticism by the European Union of Jewish settlement on occupied land the Palestinians seek for a state, advising the 27-nation bloc to attend to its own problems instead.

The comments by Avigdor Lieberman, a hardliner who serves as Israel's top diplomat by dint of his clout in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government, suggested an appeal to right-wing voters ahead of the January 22 national election.

In a statement reflecting long-standing EU policy, the bloc's high representative for foreign affairs, Catherine Ashton, said on Friday she "deeply regrets" Israel's announcement of plans to expand Gilo settlement between East Jerusalem and the West Bank, lands it seized in a 1967 war.

"Settlements are illegal under international law and threaten to make a two-state solution impossible," she said, referring to more than two decades of efforts to negotiate the creation of a Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state.

Lieberman said in a statement such censures "attest to a fundamental lack of ability to understand regional reality" and "merely encourage the Palestinian side to continue to refuse to sit and negotiate, and to pursue anti-Israel activity in the international sphere".

Israel is preoccupied by the Palestinians' plan to sidestep the deadlocked talks by asking the United Nations next month to upgrade their member status, and has lobbied the Europeans and others to oppose the move.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem - including the annexed eastern sector and nearby settlements like Gilo - its capital, a position not accepted internationally. Most world powers deem the settlements illegal.

Lieberman concluded his statement by suggesting the European Union "focus, for now, on the problems arising among the various peoples and national groups on Europe's territory, and once there is a successful solution we would be happy to hear recommendations for solving the problems with the Palestinians".

Israel's Netanyahu: no limit on Jerusalem building

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is vowing to continue building in east Jerusalem, over the objection of Palestinians who claim the territory as capital of their hoped-for state.

October 20, 2012

AP - Israel's prime minister vowed on Sunday to continue building in east Jerusalem, despite objections from Palestinians who claim the territory as capital of their hoped-for state.

Benjamin Netanyahu spoke Sunday after the European Union's foreign policy chief criticized plans to build 800 new apartments and a military college on contested land, which the international community considers to be under Israeli occupation.

"We are not imposing any restrictions on construction in Jerusalem" Netanyahu told his Cabinet. "It is our capital."

A top aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas promptly accused Netanyahu of deliberately destroying prospects for peace.

The Israeli leader's comment "comes in the context of the continuing destruction of the peace process and the two-state solution," Nabil Abu Rdeneh said.

The fate of Jerusalem lies at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians refuse to negotiate while Israel continues to build settlements in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, areas captured by the Jewish state in 1967.

Netanyahu has rejected the notion of partitioning the city.

Meanwhile, American academic Noam Chomsky made his first ever visit to the Gaza Strip, where he called on Israel to end its blockade of the territory run by the Islamic militant group Hamas.

Israel says it imposed the blockade to prevent Gaza militants from getting weapons. Gaza militants have fired thousands of rockets and mortar rounds at Israeli border communities and towns over the past decade.
Hamas is listed as a terror group by the U.S., EU and others because of its suicide bombings and other attacks against civilian targets like buses and restaurants that have killed hundreds of people.

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh issued a statement Sunday evening saying he met with Chomsky in the afternoon. According to the statement, the Hamas leader thanked Chomsky for his support of the Palestinians.

The octogenarian Chomsky, an ardent critic of Israel who was banned from the country in 2010, entered Gaza through neighboring Egypt to attend a linguistics conference. While there, he accused the U.S. of allowing the Jewish state to act with impunity for its continuation of the blockade, which Israel imposed after the militant Islamist Hamas group violently seized control of Gaza in 2007.

The restrictions on Gaza were loosened after an Israeli raid on a blockade-busting boat in 2009 killed nine Turkish activists, but there are still limits on movement, imports of raw materials, and exports.