Israel approves housing plan in Jerusalem
US President Donald Trump is already looming large over some of the most contentious issues dividing Israelis and Palestinians, emboldening some Israeli officials to make moves that threaten to reignite violence and dim the prospect of reviving peace efforts ever further.
Two days after his inauguration, the Jerusalem municipality approved delayed plans to build hundreds of apartments in the eastern sector of the city that Palestinians claim for a future capital.
Mayor Nir Barkat, echoing the relief of many Israeli officials, declared the dawn of a “new era” following eight years of “pressure from the Obama administration” to freeze settlement building it saw as hindering Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. Israel has also embraced Trump’s declared plan to relocate the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, a move from which other presidents have shied.
Sensing he is more amenable to settlement construction than his predecessors, some ministers are promoting legislation to annex part of the West Bank after 50 years of occupation.
The plans to relocate the embassy and accelerate construction on contested land have further sapped Palestinian hopes for a state, deepening frustrations that in the past have exploded into armed conflict with Israel. Palestinian leaders are warning that this will spell the end of the two-state solution, and Israeli media have reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed security officials to prepare to contain violence.
OUTBREAK OF VIOLENCE
“I don’t want to say within a week or two, there will be a fullfledged uprising,” said Ami Ayalon, a former head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service and a prominent advocate of peacemaking. “But there are all the elements here that show there can be an outbreak of violence.”
Barkat downplayed the prospect of violence in an interview in which he endorsed both the embassy move and expanded construction in areas of the city captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
“I stick to my guns,” he said. “I do the right thing. I strongly recommend the US administration not to be afraid of anything and just do the right thing.”
Trump invited Netanyahu to Washington for a visit in February and the White House issued no response to the housing approval. Spokesman Sean Spicer has signalled that an announcement on moving the embassy was not forthcoming either, saying, “We are at the very beginning stages of even discussing this subject.”
Palestinians see a relocation of the US embassy as cementing Israel’s grip on the entire city. The Israeli government sees an embassy move as international recognition of its sovereignty over Jerusalem