Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Israel defies UN resolution, plans to add settlements
The nation responds to the 14-0 Security Council vote condemning construction in the West Bank by continuing home building.
TEL AVIV, Israel — Defying a U.N. Security Council resolution to cease Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the municipality is moving ahead with plans to build thousands of new homes in a part of the city claimed by Palestinians as their future capital.
The controversial building plans come as Israel’s government has reacted furiously to the Security Council’s 14-0 vote on Friday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructing the Israeli foreign ministry to scale back diplomatic contacts with Security Council members who voted in favor of the resolution.
Netanyahu has accused the Obama administration of orchestrating passage of the resolution, a charge the administration has denied. The U.S. had long vetoed resolutions condemning Israel but abstained Friday, thereby letting the measure pass. The administration has argued that settlements undermine the two-state solution, which calls for the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
With the political fallout from the Security Council decision still simmering, Israel and the Palestinians are turning their attention to a conference on the Middle East that the French government will host in Paris on Jan. 15. Scores of nations are invited, and Israel is bracing for the possibility of the conference’s adopting additional precedent-setting declarations about a twostate solution being vital for Middle East peace.
Embarrassed by the defeat in the U.N., Netanyahu has sought to project defiance in the face of international pressure. In addition to a series of diplomatic protests, the prime minister is under rising pressure to step up new settlement building.
On Wednesday, the Jerusalem municipal planning committee is expected to approve building permits for 618 housing units in neighborhoods in areas of the city conquered by Israel in the 1967 ArabIsraeli war, according to an Israeli peace group that monitors building. While those areas are considered illegal settlements under Security Council Resolution 2334, Israeli government officials see them as neighborhoods in their undivided capital.
In addition to approving the permits Wednesday, the planning committee is expected to advance plans for 2,600 housing units in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, and thousands more elsewhere, according to a municipal official.
Ir Amim, an Israeli group that seeks to promote Israeli-Palestinian compromise, said there’s been a noticeable increase in the number of planning approvals for housing in East Jerusalem since Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. election. Israeli officials are encouraged by Trump, who has vowed to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move that would recognize the city as Israel’s capital.