OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AFP)
Israel has allocated a large sum in 2008 budget to build 750 homes in two settlements in the West Bank, the spokesman for the Israeli movement Peace Now announced Sunday.
Yariv Oppenheimer told AFP: "We have discovered that the 2008 State budget includes 48 million shekels for the construction of 250 homes in the Maale Adumim settlement and 50 million more to build 500 homes in Har Homa," a settlement in the annexed eastern sector of occupied Jerusalem.
A Cabinet minister confirmed the planned move, which is aimed to enrage Palestinians who say such construction undermines nascent peace talks.
Minister Rafi Eytan told Army Radio that Israel never promised to halt construction within the municipal borders of Jerusalem. "We have always said that we can build in Har Homa which is inside the municipal limits of Jerusalem," he declared.
"There may be problems for Maale Adumim, but we want to continue the natural extension of big settlements”, he said.
Oppenheimer told AFP he was against the spread of settlements, "which threatens the peace talks with the Palestinians."
Earlier this week Israel abandoned plans for a new settlement in the Atarot area of east Jerusalem, a decision which US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called a "good step" in the context of the newly revived peace talks.
A Palestinian official said earlier Saturday that the Palestinians will renew demands for a freeze on settlement growth in the West Bank and east Jerusalem at their next meeting with Israeli negotiators.
"The next round of negotiations will take place on Monday and until now we are still waiting for a clear Israeli position regarding the freeze on settlements," said Yasser Abd Rabbo, a member of the negotiating team.
In November, Israel and the Palestinians agreed to re-launch the Middle East peace process after a seven-year hiatus at an international conference in the US city of Annapolis.
There the two sides agreed to proceed on the basis of the roadmap agreement, a 2003 blueprint for peace that requires Israel to freeze all settlement activity and the Palestinians to impose law and order in the territories.
A first round of negotiations was held on December 12, with the
Palestinian focus on Jewish settlements.
Israel does not consider the Har Homa project to be a settlement because it lies within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem, drawn up by Israel after it occupied and annexed the eastern half of the city in 1967.
But the international community has never recognized the annexation, and Palestinians have demanded that east Jerusalem be the capital of their future state.
"We demand a freeze of settlements in all Palestinian lands, without exception, whether in the city of Jerusalem or in any other part of the West Bank," Abd Rabbo said.
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