Netanyahu steps up settlement construction after UNESCO vote
JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday ordered accelerated construction of 2,000 homes in Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and nearby West Bank settlements, his office said, a day after the Palestinians gained membership in a major U.N. agency.
Netanyahu’s move, along with a hold on the transfer of taxes collected by Israel for the Palestinian Authority, were described by Israeli officials as initial responses to Palestinian moves to gain recognition of statehood at the United Nations.
UNESCO voted to admit Palestine on Monday, Longchamp Outletafter Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas applied for full U.N. membership in September.
The United States announced that it would cut its funding to the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in response to the vote Monday, saying it undermined the goal of a negotiated peace agreement that would bring about a Palestinian state. Israel said it would review further cooperation with the agency.
The announcement of accelerated construction on contested land and suspension of fund transfers came after a meeting of Netanyahu’s inner cabinet to consider responses to the UNESCO vote.
An Israeli official said Netanyahu had ordered that bids be expedited for construction of 1,650 homes in Jewish neighborhoods built on West Bank land annexed to Jerusalem after the 1967 Middle East war, including in Har Homa, a development near Bethlehem.
The rest of the homes would be built in the West Bank settlement towns of Ma’aleh Adumim and Efrat near Jerusalem, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The statement from Netanyahu’s office said that the new construction would be in areas that “will under any future agreement remain part of Israel.” Palestinians seek East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and they say that Israeli building activity there is destroying prospects for a two-state solution to the conflict.
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