JERUSALEM — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has appealed to the U.S. to block a new Israeli plan to build hundreds of additional homes in Jewish settlements, a top negotiator said today, warning the move could put U.S.-led peace efforts in peril.
Israel officials have said the planned construction of new units in the West Bank and east Jerusalem will be announced next week, just as Israel is set to release 26 long-serving Palestinian prisoners under a pledge it made at the outset of peace talks last summer.
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously issued similar construction announcements to blunt hardline criticism of prisoner releases. It will be the third of four planned releases.
In a late-night meeting Thursday with U.S. envoy Martin Indyk, Abbas “asked for U.S. intervention to stop the Israeli government from issuing new settlement decisions in order to save the peace process and the American efforts,” top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said.
The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem and the West Bank, areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as parts of a future independent state. They say that Israeli settlement construction is a sign of bad faith. With more than 550,000 Israelis living in areas captured in 1967, the Palestinians say time is quickly running out on hopes to divide the land.
The planned Israeli announcement will almost certainly spark a crisis in the peace talks, which resumed last July after a nearly five-year break. Under heavy pressure from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the Palestinians were forced to drop a demand for a halt in settlement construction. In exchange, Israel agreed to release 104 of the longest-serving Palestinian prisoners it holds.
The new construction plans include 600 new homes in Ramat Shlomo, an enclave in east Jerusalem, and roughly 800 additional homes in the West Bank, according to an Israeli official familiar with the plan. The official said Netanyahu has ordered the Housing Ministry to make preparations for a formal announcement next week.
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