[Arab News] It would probably just be easier to come up with a very short list of things Paleostinians aren't angry about.Israel has granted preliminary approval for 625 new homes in east Jerusalem, prompting an angry response from Paleostinians on Thursday as peace talks remained stuck over settlement construction.
The plan for a new housing project received preliminary approval from a district planning committee, which published an announcement on Nov. 25. Further approval is required, and if the plan is given final approval construction will not begin for about two years.
According to the announcement in the Maariv daily, the homes are part of a "residential neighborhood" in Pisgat Zeev, a sprawling area of 50,000 residents. Israelis consider it a neighborhood of their capital, while the Paleostinians view it as a settlement.
The Paleostinians have refused to resume peace talks with Israel without a full construction freeze that would include the West Bank and east Jerusalem, the part of the city they want for the capital of a future state. Israel, which sees all of Jerusalem as its own capital, has rejected that condition and has continued approving new projects there even as US mediators try to revive the talks.
The leader of the Paleostinian government in the West Bank, President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas, was to meet with US officials Thursday for an update on those efforts.
"It seems obvious that we have received the Israeli answer to the American attempts to stop settlements," Paleostinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Thursday. Israel has chosen "settlements and not peace," he said.
In the Gazoo Strip, which is ruled by the bad boy Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, group, Israeli soldiers killed two gunnies from the Islamic Jihad organization in an overnight clash along the Gazoo-Israel border fence, the Israeli military said.
Islamic Jihad did not immediately confirm the deaths.
Violence has dropped in Gazoo since the end of Israel's offensive in the territory in early 2009, but bad boy attacks on the border and sporadic rocket fire have continued.