US: Israel settlement plans 'counterproductive'

JERUSALEM?? Israel approved on Tuesday the construction of 1,100 homes for Jews on annexed land in the West Bank, a move that will complicate international efforts to renew peace talks and defuse a crisis over a Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas applied at the U.N. on Friday for full Palestinian membership, a step opposed by Israel and the United States, which urged him to resume peace negotiations.

Story: Abbas proclaims 'Palestinian Spring' to cheering crowd of thousands

The so-called Quartet of international mediators -- the United States, the European Union, Russia and the U.N. -- has called for talks to begin within a month and urged both sides not to take unilateral actions that could block peacemaking.

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The United States called Israel's decision on settlements? "counterproductive" and urged both Israel and the Palestinians not to take steps which could complicate resumption of direct peace talks.

US: 'Deeply disappointed'
"We are deeply disappointed by this morning's announcement by the government of Israel," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

"We consider this counterproductive to our efforts to resume direct negotiations between the parties and we have long urged both parties to avoid actions which could undermine trust, including in Jerusalem, and will continue to work with parties to try to resume direct negotiations."

The U.S. criticism Tuesday was matched by the European Union's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton who called on Israel to reverse the decision.

Video: Palestinians rally in support of statehood (on this page)

Richard Miron, spokesman for U.N. Middle East envoy Robert Serry, called the decision "very concerning." He said settlement activity "undermines the prospect of resuming negotiations and reaching a two-state solution to the conflict."

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said the new housing units represented "1,100 'noes' to the Quartet statement."

"Israel is challenging the will of the international community with the continued settlement policy," Nabil Abu Rdainah, an Abbas spokesman, said.

Abbas has made a cessation of Israeli settlement building a condition for returning to negotiations which collapsed a year ago after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to extend a 10-month partial moratorium on construction.

The new homes are to be built in Gilo, an urban settlement that Israel erected on land it captured in the West Bank in a 1967 war and annexed unilaterally as part of its declared capital, Jerusalem.

Disputed land
Palestinians want to create a state in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and say settlements could deny them a viable country. Israel cites historical and Biblical links to the West Bank, which it calls Judea and Samaria.

Israel's Interior Ministry said a district planning committee approved the Gilo project and public objections to the proposal could be lodged within a 60-day review period, after which construction could begin.

In New York on Monday, a divided U.N. Security Council met behind closed doors for its first discussion of last week's Palestinian application for full U.N. membership as a state.

The move seems certain to fail due to Israeli and U.S. opposition, despite substantial support by other governments.

Abu Rdainah said it was up to the Security Council to put a stop to Israel's settlement policy "which is destroying the two-state solution and putting more obstacles in front of any effort to bring about a resumption of negotiations."

Speaking on Israeli Army Radio before approval of the Gilo plan was announced, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, said Washington opposed Abbas's demand for settlement building to stop before peace talks can be held again.

"We've never set that, in this administration or any other, as a precondition for talks," he said. But Shapiro noted the U.S. has long opposed Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

Netanyahu indicated on Tuesday he was not about to offer a new settlement moratorium to try to coax Abbas back into talks.

"We already gave at the office," Netanyahu said in an interview in The Jerusalem Post, a phrase meaning that he believed he had done enough last year when he temporarily halted construction in West Bank settlements.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44688931/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/

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