U.S. 'dismayed' at decision to okay 900 housing units in Gilo

The Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee yesterday authorized the construction of 900 new housing units in East Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood, prompting an expression of "dismay" from the White House.

"At a time when we are working to relaunch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement. "We are dismayed at the Jerusalem Planning Committee's decision to move forward on the approval process for the expansion of Gilo."

"The U.S. also objects to other Israeli practices in Jerusalem related to housing, including the continuing pattern of evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes," he added.

Earlier yesterday, the daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported that aides to George Mitchell, the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, had previously asked the Prime Minister's Bureau to prevent the neighborhood's expansion.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat responded to the move by saying there is no point in talking peace while Israel expands Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem.

"We condemn this in the strongest possible terms," he said. "It shows that it is meaningless to resume negotiations when this goes on."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bureau said the authorization was part of a routine bureaucratic planning process. Gilo, the bureau's statement stressed, is part of Jerusalem, no different from any other neighborhood in the city, and construction has gone on there for decades. Moreover, it noted, this is an issue that enjoys broad national support.

Officials in Netanyahu's office insisted there was no connection between the timing of the U.S. demand that construction in Gilo be stopped and Interior Minister Eli Yishai's signing of the necessary permits yesterday. The planning and building committee's meeting was set well in advance, they said, and for Yishai to sign the permits as soon as the panel approves them is routine.

The sources added that Netanyahu's position on the subject of Jerusalem is well known to the Americans, as he has reiterated it dozens of times: Gilo will be part of the State of Israel under any future settlement, and he therefore welcomes construction there.

The plan approved yesterday, known as the "Western Slopes of Gilo" project, is the first stage of a much broader expansion of the southern Jerusalem neighborhood. The current expansion is in the direction of the Malha neighborhood. The full plan, which is already included in Jerusalem's master plan, will also expand the neighborhood southward.

In addition, plans exist for major construction in the area between Gilo and Har Homa and around the neighborhood of Givat Hamatos.

Overall, plans are in various stages of approval for 4,000 housing units in Gilo and its environs. All of these units would be over the Green Line.

Planned construction

Sources in the Jerusalem planning authority said the planned construction in the south of the city stems from the cancelation of plans to expand the city to the west. Those plans were nixed due to pressure from environmental organizations.

Other major construction projects in Jerusalem, including some over the Green Line, have already been approved and are awaiting the issuance of tenders. Sources in the Jerusalem municipality said the delay in issuing these tenders is not political but legal.

In response to the American reaction, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat issued a statement saying that "Israeli law does not discriminate between Jews and Arabs or between East and West [Jerusalem]. The demand to stop Jewish construction only would not be legal in the United States, either, or in any other enlightened country in the world. The Jerusalem Municipality will continue to enable construction in all parts of the city, for Jews and Arabs, on the basis of one law."

But Orly Noy of the Ir Amim organization, which opposes Jewish construction in East Jerusalem, charged that "this construction project is one of a series that, if implemented, would create a broad strip of Israeli construction to the southeast of the city that would unilaterally and drastically alter the reality in the area and significantly impede any possibility of future negotiations."