Vice PM Ramon: Parts of J'lem must be given to Palestinians

Haaretz Last update - 20:25 09/12/2007
By Haaretz Service and News Agencies

Vice Premier Haim Ramon responded on Sunday to U.S. criticism of plans to build additional homes in an East Jerusalem neighborhood by saying parts of the city must be given to the Palestinians to avoid losing U.S. support. Ramon said Israel would not give up the Jewish neighborhood of Har Homa, where a state plan, announced last week, to build 300 new homes sparked Palestinian anger and a warning from U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who suggested the plan risked harming a peace process she helped relaunch last month at the Annapolis conference.

"We must come today and say, friends, the Jewish neighborhoods, including Har Homa, will remain under Israeli sovereignty, and the Arab neighborhoods will be the Palestinian capital, which they will call Jerusalem or whatever they want," Ramon told Israel Radio. "Then we won't get embroiled, as is happening now, in an uncalled-for and badly timed debate with the United States, at a time when we need its support," he added.

The vice premier said, however, that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's opponents were being unrealistic in hoping for U.S. support for any peace plan that would give Israel the entire Jerusalem municipality in its current form, including all of East Jerusalem, as its capital. Ramon told Army Radio that he is "convinced that all Jewish neighborhoods, including Har Homa, should be under Israeli sovereignty and the Arab neighborhoods should not be under Israeli sovereignty, because they pose a threat to Jerusalem being the capital of a Jewish Israel."

"Those who want Walajeh and Jabal Mukaber as well as Har Homa, will ultimately cause Jerusalem not to be a Jewish capital to Israel with a clear Jewish majority," he added, referring to Palestinian villages incorporated into Jerusalem after 1967. Ramon, seen as a confidant who often speaks for Olmert, told Israel Radio: "Whoever wants Walaja, is endangering our hold on Har Homa... Jewish neighborhoods will remain in Israeli control and Arab neighborhoods will be the Palestinian capital. "This is the right thing to do. This way we will not be drawn into an unnecessary annexation especially when we need the backing of the United States."

Israel has rejected criticism of a tender for some 300 more homes and other units at Har Homa - which Arabs call Abu Ghneim - on the grounds that it annexed the land and placed it inside Jerusalem city boundaries drawn in the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War. That annexation is not recognized internationally. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wants East Jerusalem as capital of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki denounced Ramon's statement and its timing: On Wednesday, negotiating teams from both sides are to sit down together for their first formal talks in seven years. "These statements place obstacles before any serious attempts by Palestinian negotiators on Jerusalem," Malki said. "They aim to create confusion and change the course of negotiations before they begin. They try to pressure Palestinians and the international parties to think of Israeli needs before they begin."

Israel's announcement last week that it would go ahead with plans to build 307 apartments in Har Homa came days after both sides officially announced the resumption of peace talks at the U.S.-sponsored conference in Annapolis. Housing Minister Zeev Boim told Israel Army Radio on Saturday that it was Israel's right to build in Har Homa - and everywhere else in the expanded boundaries of Jerusalem. "It's inconceivable that the peace process requires a halt to all construction in Jerusalem, in an area that is within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries," Boim said. "There's nothing to prevent us from building there, just as there is nothing to prevent us from building anywhere else".

After 40 years of construction, Jews in East Jerusalem number 180,000, rivaling the Arab population of 240,000, according to government statistics and the Jerusalem Institute think tank. For years, Israeli governments rejected any talk of dividing or sharing the city. But two months ago, Ramon indicated a major governmental shift when he spoke openly about sharing Jerusalem with the Palestinians. Shortly after, Olmert himself publicly suggested that Israel's control of some traditionally Arab parts of the city might not be necessary. He named some outlying neighborhoods in the eastern sector, but not the Old City. The Old City is the most explosive component of any talks on Jerusalem. It is home to the site of the Jewish biblical temples and their remnant, the Western Wall. The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam's third-holiest shrine, is built over the remains of the ancient temples. The competing claims to Jerusalem have derailed past peace talks, and are sure to complicate the new round of negotiations. The sides have pledged to try to work out a final peace deal by the end of 2008.