Jerusalem and Washington have reportedly reached a secret agreement whereby Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will not make any public statements announcing a freeze on construction in east Jerusalem, and has agreed to postpone new buildings in Ramat Shlomo for a period of several years and has guaranteed not to issue new building tenders for projects in east Jerusalem.
The Israeli prime minister has also agreed to prevent as much as possible any activities that may be considered provocative in Arab neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, Israel’s daily Maariv said Monday.
The paper said this would not relate to projects that have already been approved such as the planned new apartments in the Shepherd’s Hotel.
According to the report, Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama reached an understanding but both agreed to refrain from discussing the issue in public, hoping that the strategy will succeed in bringing about proximity talks with the Palestinians.
Meanwhile, Jerusalem municipality officials said the government has already imposed a de facto freeze on Jewish construction in east Jerusalem.
Jerusalem Municipality official Meir Margalit told reporters he was informed by officials involved in construction projects that the prime minister’s office had ordered a freeze during U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel when it was announced that plans were underway to build hundreds of housing units in Ramat Shlomo.
"The government ordered the Interior Ministry immediately after the Biden incident to not even talk about new construction for Jewish homes in east Jerusalem," Margalit said. "It's not just that building has stopped: The committees that deal with this are not even meeting anymore."
According to reports, the Interior Ministry’s planning committee that approves building projects in the capital has not convened since.
However none of the officials could confirm they had received official orders to halt work.
Until now, Netanyahu has said a number of times in public that he did not intend to impose a building freeze on Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, just as former governments never did.
(AP contributed to this report) |
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