[PJ] Israel has announced that it will be building 800 new housing units. Of these, 560 will be in Maale Adumim, a town of 40,000 located four miles east of Jerusalem, and 240 will be in three Jerusalem neighborhoods.State Department spokesman John Kirby reacted with unusually strong language:
If it's true, this ... would be the latest step in what seems to be the systematic process of land seizures, settlement expansions, and legalization of outposts that is fundamentally undermining the prospects for a two-state solution. We oppose steps like these which we believe are counterproductive.
Kirby added that Washington was "deeply concerned":
This action risks entrenching a one-state reality and raises serious questions about Israel's intentions.
It should be added that Maale Adumim and the three "East Jerusalem" (actually eastern, northern, and southern Jerusalem) neighborhoods are located on land that was illegally occupied by Jordan from 1949 to 1967, and that Israel seized from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War after Jordan attacked Israel.