Jerusalem // Israel on Sunday approved building permits for 566 settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem that it had kept on hold until US president Donald Trump took office.
“The rules of the game have changed with Donald Trump’s arrival as president,” said Jerusalem deputy mayor Meir Turjeman. “We no longer have our hands tied as in the time of Barack Obama. Now we can finally build.”
Beside the homes approved by city officials yesterday, plans for about 11,000 other homes in east Jerusalem are also in process, he said.
The permits issued on Sunday were for homes in the settlement neighbourhoods of Pisgat Zeev, Ramot and Ramat Shlomo, according to Mr Turjeman, who heads the planning committee that approved them.
The Jerusalem municipality said the construction of 105 Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem had also been approved on Sunday.
Palestinians in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank face great difficulty getting construction approvals from Israeli authorities, who routinely demolish structures they deem illegal.
Mr Turjeman said the approval of new settler homes had been postponed at the request prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu following a UN Security Council resolution last month against Israeli settlement building. Former president Obama declined to use the US veto against the resolution, allowing it to pass 14-0.
A spokesman for Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas condemned the latest settlement approvals and said they violated the UN resolution.
“We demand that the Security Council immediately move according to Resolution 2334 to stop the policy of the extremist Israeli government that is working on destroying the two-state solution,” Nabil Abu Rudeina said.
“It is time to stop dealing with Israel as a state above the law.”
Mr Trump has pledged strong support for Israel and vowed during his campaign to recognise Jerusalem as its capital and move the US embassy there, despite the city’s contested status. He was to speak to Mr Netanyahu by phone later on Sunday for the first time since taking office.
The new US president’s proposals would break with decades of precedent and put his country at odds with nearly all of the international community.
Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, and their leaders have warned that Mr Trump’s move would mean the end of the two-state solution for peace.
Mr Trump’s election has also emboldened members of Mr Netanyahu’s government to push for the annexation of West Bank settlements, which are illegal under international law.
The leader of the pro-settler Jewish Home Party, Naftali Bennett, believes the Trump administration will be friendly to the settlement movement, and that Israel should therefore drop the idea of creating a Palestinian state and instead annex West Bank settlements.
His party has been pushing for the annexation of Maale Adumim, a sprawling settlement, near Jerusalem. However, Mr Netanyahu’s security cabinet, which includes Mr Bennett, on Sunday agreed to postpone a vote on the proposal until after an expected meeting between the prime minister and Mr Trump next month.
Mr Trump’s appointed ambassador to Israel has close ties to Jewish West Bank settlements, as does the foundation run by the family of the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press