The European Union’s top diplomat, Catherine Ashton, has criticized Israel for endangering the fragile Middle East peace process by announcing plans to expand “illegal settlements.”

“Recent Israeli decisions to build new housing units in East Jerusalem have endangered and undermined the tentative agreement to begin proximity talks,” the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy said Monday in a speech to the Arab League in Cairo.

Ashton, who is facing a crucial test in her first official trip as the EU policy chief, cautioned that the European Union would not accept the expansion of “illegal” settlement and questioned Israel’s commitment to ending the conflict.

“The European Union’s position on settlements is clear. Settlements are illegal, constitute an obstacle to peace, and threaten to make a two state solution impossible, a solution that the Israeli Prime Minister says he supports,” she said.

Israel’s settlement activities are in clear violation of the United Nations Security Council Resolutions 446, 452 and 465.

Ashton went on to affirm that while seeking a deal restore “justice, freedom, and dignity to the Palestinians,” Israel’s security was also a main concern of the 27-nation bloc.

Over the weekend, Spain, which also holds the rotating EU presidency, warned that if Israel were to continue settlement expansion at the current rate the occupied Palestinian lands would be annexed within two years.

“Until now, it’s not too late, but if we wait for more than two years it will be too late,” Spanich Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said Saturday.

Israel’s actions in Jerusalem are absurd

Egyptian FM says Netanyahu only has a desire to waste time, not make peace.
While it was not clear if he was referring to the rededication ceremony of the Hurva Synagogue in the Old City or to the approval of the new east Jerusalem housing plan, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Monday that Israel’s actions in Jerusalem were “absurd, an evasion, maneuvering and an attempt to suffocate the Palestinians.”

Gheit said Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu seemed to have a desire for peace when he visited Egypt in December.

“But the recent measures revealed that there is nothing new, only an a desire to waste time. This requires a stance from the international community,” the Egyptian foreign minister said, adding that “Israel must know there is a price to pay.”

Despite ongoing criticism by the United States over the approval of 1,600 new homes in east Jerusalem’s Ramat Shlomo last week, Netanyahu said earlier Monday that construction in the capital would continue as usual.

“Construction in Jerusalem will continue in any part of the city as it has during the last 42 years,” Netanyahu stressed at the Likud faction meeting.

“In the past 40 years, there was no government that limited construction in any Jerusalem area or neighborhood,” Netanyahu said. “Establishing Jewish neighborhoods did not hurt Jerusalem’s Arab residents and was not at their expense.”

The prime minister said Israel was committed to the 10-month building moratorium in the West Bank.

At the Labor faction meeting, Defense Minister Ehud Barak also referred to the crisis with Washington, saying that “the government must work so the crisis will be forgotten and the talks get back on track,” and explaining how he was working to decrease the tensions.

“I just had a meeting at the Knesset with Fred Hoff, aide to [US special Mideast envoy George] Mitchell, an American diplomat who has been working with us for many years, as well as with US Ambassador to Israel James Cunningham.”

Barak told the faction that, “we discussed the necessary steps and possible ways to abate the recent tensions and resume the negotiations with the Palestinians.”

The negotiations, Barak said, are “supremely needed and are an issue that Labor believes in. It’s one of the reasons we are in the government.”