TIMES ONLINE: Binyamin Netanyahu insisted today that he will not halt building projects in east Jerusalem, despite calls by the US for him to do so.
The defiant statement came after the Israeli Prime Minister returned from a bruising visit to the White House, where he was given a public dressing down for his controversial settlement policy.
"The Prime Minister's position is that there is no change in Israel's policy on Jerusalem that has been pursued by all governments of Israel for the last 42 years," his office said in a statement.
Those include implementing a strict freeze on construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Israeli troops withdrawing to areas they occupied before the beginning of the Palestinian Intifada ten years ago, and the release of Palestinian prisoners.
Mr Netanyahu's spokesman, Nir Hefez, said that the US had not agreed to allow Israeli to continue building in east Jerusalem, which was captured by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and is now home to 200,000 Israelis. He had earlier hinted that such a deal was possible, but later retracted the statement.
Analysts in Israel agree that Mr Netanyahu faces a choice of which crisis he wants to contend with: he can bow to the US demands and risk a split with hardline nationalists and ultra-Orthodox parties in his coalition, or stick to his guns and face down an increasingly hostile US administration at a time when Israel needs US backing to tackle a potentially nuclear Iran. >>> James Hider in Jerusalem | Friday, March 26, 2010
