Despite recent Prime Minister's Office denials asserting that there has been no change to Israel's east Jerusalem construction policy, Army Radio reported Monday that plans to build 1,500 new housing units in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood -- beyond the Green Line -- have been postponed for at least three weeks. Government officials have accused the prime minister of delaying the construction for "diplomatic reasons."
The northern Jerusalem Ramat Shlomo housing construction plan sparked a diplomatic incident back in 2010 when the Interior Ministry announced that the construction plan had been approved precisely when U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was visiting Israel. The U.S. was outraged, as they view Israel's construction in territories claimed by the Palestinians for a future state as a major obstacle holding up the peace process.
Since Biden's visit, over three years ago, the plan has not been executed. According to Army Radio, the plan is fully ready, pending one final approval that is not being granted.
The Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee finalized the Ramat Shlomo plan five months ago, pending specific corrections to be made by the Israel Land Administration. The administration filed its corrections more than three weeks ago, but, according to a senior government official, the Interior Ministry has received specific instructions from the Prime Minister's Office not to approve the plan, due to the diplomatically sensitive nature of the issue, Army Radio reported.
The Interior Ministry issued a statement, denying the report and asserting that the final details of the plan have not been worked out. But the Israel Land Administration insists that all the final corrections have been made. The Prime Minister's Office declined to comment.
In an interview with Army Radio on Monday, former Housing and Construction Minister Ariel Atias (Shas) said that during his term, things were no different. "There was a perpetual construction freeze, except for when it was actively lifted, like after the tragic incident in Itamar [the murder of five members of the Fogel family in 2011] or the relocation of the houses in the Ulpana neighborhood -- in those instances the government took the opportunity to approve several hundred new housing units," Atias said.
One of the officials involved in the approval process told Army Radio that "right now, the situation is ridiculous. We are vocally declaring that we will not accept any preconditions [posed by the Palestinians before peace talks can resume], but in practice, we are freezing the construction. We are not engaging in negotiations, and we're also not building. It is a lose-lose situation for us."
On the opposite side of the political spectrum, avidly anti-settlement Peace Now Executive Director Yariv Oppenheimer wasn't quick to welcome the supposed freeze. "Since the beginning of the year," he said, "we have seen the construction of 2,200 housing units, in Nokdim, Tekoa and Ofra, among other places."