Mohammed Mar'i Saudi Gazette RAMALLAH – The EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Friday condemned the renewed plans for Jewish settlements in and around occupied Jerusalem.
“In the light of recent media reports about renewed plans for Israeli settlements in and around East Jerusalem, the High Representative feels compelled to reiterate the EU's long-standing position about settlements,” Ashton's office said in a statement Saudi Gazette received a copy of it. “Settlements are illegal under international law and threaten to make a two-state solution impossible. The EU has repeatedly urged the Government of Israel to immediately end all settlement activities in the West Bank, including in east Jerusalem, in line with its obligations under the Roadmap (peace plan),” the statement said. Under the first stage of the US-backed Road Map of 2002, Israel was called upon in the document to dismantle all settlement outposts established after March 2001, and to freeze “all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements).” “Unilateral action by either party cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations and will not be recognized by the international community,” the statement continued. “The EU has consistently maintained that negotiations remain the best way forward for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and it reiterates that it will not recognize any changes to the pre-1967 borders, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties. Unilateral action by either party cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations and will not be recognized by the international community.”
The Israeli Channel 10 television reported on Wednesday that two contractors were notified that they had been awarded a 300-unit housing project in the East Jerusalem Jewish settlement of Ramot. It also stated that the Israeli Construction and Housing Ministry had completed technical plans for 797 units in the East Jerusalem Jewish settlement of Gilo West. The Palestinian Authority condemned the new Israeli settlement projects. “These East Jerusalem housing units are a real and official destruction of US Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts to revive the peace process,” Palestinian negotiator Sa'eb Erekat said Thursday. Erekat said that in the past 10 days Israel has displaced 77 Palestinians after demolishing their homes in the city. The Jerusalem Municipality says the houses were built without permits. Erekat also condemned assaults on Palestinians and their properties by Jewish occupiers in the West Bank and unidentified assailants in East Jerusalem. “The Israeli government is a government of settlers and for settlers,” he charged. “All what this government is doing is part of a strategy to sabotage the efforts of Kerry and the two-state option.” A US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said that continued building in east Jerusalem undermined the peace process. Kerry has expressed his concern to Israel on settlement activity publicly and privately, she said. The issue of settlement building has come up with the Israelis in the last few weeks, she said.
