Netanyahu brushes off world condemnation

Settlement plan draws criticism from US, EU ‘Palestinian’s death a violation of truce’

JERUSALEM, Dec 2, (Agencies): Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday brushed off world condemnation of Israel’s plans to expand Jewish settlements after the Palestinians won de facto UN recognition of statehood.

“We will carry on building in Jerusalem and in all the places that are on the map of Israel’s strategic interests,” a defiant Netanyahu said at the weekly cabinet meeting.

Stung by the UN General Assembly’s upgrading on Thursday of the Palestinians’ status from “observer entity” to “non-member state”, Israel said on Friday it would build 3,000 more settler homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas Palestinians want for a future state, along with Gaza.

An Israeli official said the government also ordered “preliminary zoning and planning work” for thousands of housing units in areas including the so-called “E1” zone near Jerusalem.

Such construction could divide the West Bank in two and further dim Palestinian hopes, backed by the United States and other international sponsors of the Middle East peace process, for a contiguous country. But Israeli officials said it could up to two years before any building begins in E1.

At the cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said the “unilateral step the Palestinians took at the UN is a gross violation of previous agreements signed with Israel”. The government of Israel, he added, “rejects the General Assembly’s vote”.

The upgrade, approved overwhelmingly, fell short of full UN membership, which only the Security Council can grant. But it has significant legal implications because it could allow the Palestinians access to the International Criminal Court where they could file complaints against Israel.

Israel’s settlement plans, widely seen as retaliation for the Palestinians’ UN bid, have drawn strong international condemnation from the United States, France, Britain and the European Union.

“All settlement construction is illegal under international law and constitutes an obstacle to peace,” the EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement on Sunday.

The United States said the plan was counterproductive to any resumption of direct peace talks, stalled for two years in a dispute over settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, both captured by Israel in a 1967 war.