Pressure grows for end of East Jerusalem construction

Germany, France and Sweden joined a widening group of Western nations yesterday pressing Israel to stop construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank under a U.S.-led effort to resume stalled peace talks.

In Berlin, Ruprecht Polenz, a senior member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, was quoted as saying Israel ran the risk "of gradually committing suicide as a democratic state" if it did not stop the construction. Polenz, head of the German parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Rheinische Post daily that "Israel is overlooking the fact that neither Palestinians nor Arab states will agree to a solution without East Jerusalem."

The French Foreign Ministry summoned Israeli ambassador Daniel Shek to protest a planned housing project in East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

But the recent international criticism has been condemned in Israel. According to Interior Minister Eli Yishai, "the Israeli government is not a subsidiary of any other administration. The government is sovereign [and can] build according to its Jewish conscience in the face of all the pressure."

MKs also weigh in

Habayit Hayehudi chairman Daniel Hershkowitz added that "international pressure and the challenge to Israel's sovereignty in Jerusalem must be repelled. Those who object to construction in Sheikh Jarrah in Israel's capital are also liable to object to construction in the Tel Aviv neighborhood of Sheikh Munis."

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said that "Israel acts and will act in accordance with the national interests that are important to it, especially when the matter relates to Jerusalem."

Meanwhile, Sallai Meridor, Israel's ambassador in Washington until recently, told Israel Radio that his country's commitment to remove unauthorized outposts was "absolute."

He said there were understandings with the United States "over what the Americans could live with and what they couldn't. The Americans, to my regret, are retreating from these understandings."

But Meridor added that "there was not a moment of doubt that the Israeli commitment on the outposts was absolute."