Israel Rightly Refuses U.S. Request To Suspend Building Project In East Jerusalem

The AP reports that "Israel on Sunday rejected a U.S. demand to suspend a planned housing project in east Jerusalem, threatening to further complicate an unusually tense standoff with its strongest ally over settlement construction. Israeli officials said the country's ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, was summoned to the State Department over the weekend and told that a project being developed by an American millionaire in the disputed section of the holy city should not go ahead." Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu told his Cabinet there would be no limits on Jewish construction anywhere in "unified Jerusalem." He said that Israel "cannot accept the fact that Jews wouldn't be entitled to live and buy anywhere in Jerusalem," Netanyahu declared. He also said that Israeli sovereignty over the entire city was "indisputable." "I can only imagine what would happen if someone would suggest Jews could not live in certain neighborhoods of New York, London, Paris or Rome. There would certainly be a great international outcry," he told reporters at the cabinet meeting. "We cannot accept this edict in Jerusalem." Netanyahu also explained that "Israeli Arabs are not forbidden from buying houses in west Jerusalem, and Jews must be granted the same right in the eastern part of the city."

WND reports that Netanyahu was quoted by his advisers as saying he "was surprised by the U.S. move. In my conversation with [U.S. President Barack] Obama in Washington, I told him that I could not accept any limitations on our sovereignty in Jerusalem. I told him Jerusalem is not a settlement, and it has nothing to do with discussions on a freeze." Tweet