Israel demolishing chance for peace
Palestinian officials on Sunday slammed Israel’s bulldozing of an
east Jerusalem hotel to make way for settler homes, accusing the Jewish
state of destroying any chance of peace.
The Palestinians reacted furiously to the demolition of part of the
Hotel Shepherd, which sits on a plot of land in occupied east Jerusalem
where developers plan to build a complex of 20 luxury apartments for
Jewish settlers.
“By doing this, Israel has destroyed all the US efforts and ended any
possibility of a return to negotiations,” Nabil Abu Rudeina, a spokesman
for Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, said in a statement.
“Israel has no right to build in any part of east Jerusalem, or any
part of the Palestinian land occupied in 1967,” Abu Rudeina said,
calling on the United States to “stop Israeli tampering.”
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat accused Israel of trying to
supplant east Jerusalem’s Palestinian residents.
Demolishing continues. AFP |
“The state of Israel is demolishing one Palestinian property after
another in an effort to cleanse Jerusalem of its Palestinian
inhabitants, heritage and history,” he said.
US-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been
on hold since late September, when an Israeli freeze on the construction
of Jewish settlements expired.
Abbas has insisted he will not hold peace talks while Israel
continues to build on land which the Palestinians want for their future
state.
Israel said on Saturday its chief peace negotiator, Yitzhak Molcho,
would travel to Washington next week to seek to advance peace efforts
and that a Palestinian delegate would do the same.
The Palestinians have said they will not hold any talks with Israel
without a new settlement freeze.
On Sunday morning, three bulldozers worked to bring down part of the
dilapidated hotel, which was once home to Jerusalem’s Muslim leader,
Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, infamous for his ties to Nazi leader Adolf
Hitler.
The Islamist movement Hamas, which rules Gaza, urged Abbas’s rival
administration “to no longer pursue the resistance in its defence of
Jerusalem and Palestinian rights,” in a statement issued in Damascus.
The European Union joined in the condemnation.
“I reiterate that settlements are illegal under international law,
undermine trust between the parties and constitute an obstacle to
peace,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement.
In Jeddah, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference blasted the
demolition as a “flagrant violation of international law.”
Ghassan Khatib, head of the Palestinian Authority’s Government Media
Centre, accused Israel of defying the international community, which has
criticised the Jewish state for building in the contested eastern sector
of the city.
Final approval for construction of the east Jerusalem apartments came
in March, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held talks in Washington.
The announcement drew international criticism, but Netanyahu defended
the project.
Though east Jerusalem is largely Palestinian, an increasing number of
hardline Israeli settlers have moved into the area’s neighbourhoods,
sparking fights with Arab residents.
Israel’s Science and Technology Minister Daniel Hershkowitz of the
religious-nationalist Habait Hayehudi (Jewish Home) party defended
Jewish building in east Jerusalem and Sunday’s demolition.
“Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, all parts of Jerusalem, and that
place was purchased legally and building there residences for people can
only improve the quality of life in Jerusalem,” he told reporters.
Palestinians said Israeli police on Sunday arrested several Arabs in
the east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan, another target of settlement
and a frequent flashpoint between residents and settlers.
An estimated 2,000 Jewish settlers live in Palestinian neighbourhoods
of the Holy City, although the exact number of properties they own is
unclear.
The Palestinians regard east Jerusalem as the capital of their
promised state and fiercely oppose any attempts to extend Israeli
control over it.
Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War and later
annexed it in a move the rest of the world has never recognised. The
Jewish state considers the whole of Jerusalem its “eternal and
indivisible” capital.
AFP |