Jerusalem – The Israeli government has imposed a de facto freeze on new Jewish construction in the city’s disputed eastern sector despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s public insistence it would not be stopped in the face of U.S. pressure, Jerusalem municipal officials said Monday.
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The apparent freeze would likely reflect Netanyahu’s need to mend a serious rift with the U.S. over Israeli construction on lands the Palestinians claim for a future state, and to bring the Palestinians back to the negotiating table.
However, it remained unclear if the slowdown actually constituted a moratorium or how long it would last.
An Israeli government official claimed a weekslong delay in reviewing plans for new construction was a bureaucratic issue and not evidence of a freeze. But the fact that new plans are not going ahead dovetails with signs that the Palestinians might ease their demand that the contentious construction stop before they resume peace talks.
Jerusalem Councilman Meir Margalit of the dovish Meretz Party said top Jerusalem officials intimately involved with construction projects told him Netanyahu’s office ordered a freeze after Israel infuriated Washington last month by announcing a major new east Jerusalem housing development during a visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.
Palestinians claim that sector of the city as their future capital and after word of the project got out, they called off indirect peace talks that the U.S. was about to start brokering. Palestinian leaders will seek backing this week from the Arab League to participate in those talks.
“The government ordered the Interior Ministry immediately after the Biden incident to not even talk about new construction for Jewish homes in east Jerusalem,” Margalit said. “It’s not just that building has stopped: The committees that deal with this are not even meeting anymore.”
He asked not to identify the officials who informed him of the order because they had not approved the disclosure of their names. A Jerusalem municipal spokesman did not immediately return a call seeking interviews with the officials.
Another councilman, Meir Turujamen, who sits on the Interior Ministry committee that approves building plans, said his panel has not met since the Biden visit, after previously meeting once weekly.
“I wrote a letter about three weeks or a month ago asking (Interior Minister Eli) Yishai why the committee isn’t convening,” he said. “To this day I haven’t received an answer.
Turujamen added that the last time his committee met was to approve the 1,600-apartment Ramat Shlomo project that riled the Americans.
He said he received no official word of a de facto freeze order, “but based on the situation, those are the facts. We used to meet once a week, and now for several months we haven’t met. It’s clear there’s an order.”
A separate municipal planning committee, which answers to the city, has only met once – last week, giving preliminary approval to a synagogue and kindergarten in a Jewish neighborhood in east Jerusalem, he said.
An engineer who oversees residential construction in a Jewish neighborhood in east Jerusalem said requests for proposals to build hundreds of apartments haven’t gone out. “I think it’s related to the political situation,” he said, adding that he knew of no official order to block construction.
The engineer spoke on condition of anonymity because he does business with the city and speaking out on this issue might risk putting that in jeopardy.
Netanyahu has said that he was taken by surprise by the approval of the Ramat Shlomo project while Biden was here, and aides announced that he would make sure he would be kept in the loop in the future before any decisions were taken on controversial construction.
It was not clear how a freeze would affect the Ramat Shlomo project, which has received final approval. However, Netanyahu told Biden during the vice president’s visit that the project would take years to build.
Asked about Margalit’s claim that a freeze order was in effect, government spokesman Mark Regev replied: “Following the Biden visit and the mishap, the prime minister asked that a mechanism be put in place to prevent a recurrence of this kind of debacle.”
He would not elaborate, and stopped short of saying Netanyahu had ordered a freeze.
Efrat Orbach, a spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry, said this mechanism explained why planning committee meetings were being delayed, because now multiple ministries had to be involved in the coordination.
“There is no freeze, there is bureaucracy,” Orbach said.
Israel captured east Jerusalem, the site of sacred shrines holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians, in the 1967 Middle East war and immediately annexed it. Some 180,000 Israelis now live in Jewish neighborhoods built there in the past four decades, and about 2,000 more live in the heart of traditionally Arab neighborhoods.
The Palestinians, the U.S. and the rest of the international community do not recognize the annexation and regard the neighborhoods as no different from the settlements that Israel built in the West Bank.
The hawkish Netanyahu, however, has said repeatedly that east Jerusalem will remain under Israeli sovereignty in any peace deal, a position the Palestinians reject outright. Most of the partners in his hardline coalition have publicly opposed sharing Jerusalem with the Palestinians or freezing construction in east Jerusalem.
The best defense is a good offense.
The Arabs are always putting israel on the defensive therefore they feel they have to give in.
Jerusalem never used to be on the table. So it was never an option.
Talking to terrorists never used to be on the table. It was always on the Arabs to make the first move to peace.
Israel compromised on this and agreed to make unconditional moves, now they are getting it.
Israel needs to go on the diplomatic offensive!
Kok hakovod to the City authorities for imposing such a temporary freeze on new construction while President Obama works to bring the Palestinians over to the peace table. The meetings announced yesterday at the White House with Abas provide a good indicator of how serious they are and what long term tradeoffs EY will have to make on west bank land issues to achieve an enduring settlement that also provides security.
Obama has imposed de facto Palestininan state with its capital East Jerusalem. We can only imagine what pressure was applied to Netanyahu that caused this tragedy. This is clearly a sign from G-d that we must improve.
#2 , you are smoking. What planet are you on?
I thought Netanyahu had learnt his lesson from his last term in office about not caving in to world pressure. During this term he looked good so far, he was focussed on Israel, Jews and our security first and foremost, something sadly lacking in practically all of the Israeli prime ministers terms, which has time and time again led to the spilling of Jewish blood.
When will Jewish people and their prime ministers take a stance, and instead of the big words “we have a right to exist” or “there will be severe repercussions”, actually stand behind their words, and follow up with action.
Jewish blood is still cheap. Thanks largely to the prime ministers of Israel, with their warped mindsets always trying to appease the nations including the US. This will never earn them respect no matter how inovative, clever that they may be. The only way they can earn the respect of the nations (though it’ll be tough in the beginning and will take some time to earn especially at this point after having a history of caving in again and again, initally they’ll look worse) will be as I said before,to care about Jewish security first and foremost!
Can this change during golus?
We want Moshiach NOW!
Gevald!
he bows his head!
he kneels!
he falls!
This has been the policy of all administrations. This is not new. Some try to use this to imply that President Obama is anti-semitic, but all Presidents have opposed Jews building in Jerusalem. This is not new.
with all due respect, Obama is clearly anti Israel try proving otherwise. The fact that all the presidents opposed building in Jerusalem, in ni way reflects well on Obama. It reflects terribly on all of them. You are right, anti-semitism is not new.
Terrorists call Tel Aviv and Sderot a settlement, maybe Netanyahu should cover Israel with liquid nitrogen to please them.