RAMALLAH, West Bank – U.S. Secretary of
State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday
promised vigorous and personal involvement
in stalled Mideast peace efforts and
criticized Israel's demolition of
Palestinian homes in
Jerusalem as "unhelpful."
...On Tuesday, Clinton met
with Israeli leaders, including Prime
Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu.
The hardline leader
opposes the creation of a Palestinian state
alongside Israel and supports the expansion of
Israeli settlements on war-won land
claimed by the Palestinians, including the
West Bank and east Jerusalem.
In recent days, Israel has
issued orders for the demolition of dozens
of Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem,
saying the homes were built illegally.
Palestinians say they
cannot receive proper building permits from
Israeli authorities, and the planned
demolitions are means to assert Israel's
control over the disputed city.
"Clearly, this kind of
activity is unhelpful," Clinton said, adding
that she would raise it with the Israeli
government as well as municipal officials in
Jerusalem. She said such actions violate the
"road map," a U.S.-backed peace plan.
Clinton spoke shortly
after Israel issued a new order to demolish
five residential buildings containing 55
apartments, said Hatem Abdul Qader, a
Palestinian official on Jerusalem affairs.
"It's an open demographic
war," he said. He said lawyers have
challenged the orders, halting the
demolitions until March 10.
Stephan Miller, a
spokesman for city hall, said the buildings
under demolition notice were empty and had
been built illegally.
Israel captured east
Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and
annexed the area. But the annexation is not
internationally recognized, and the
Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as capital
of a future independent state.
Palestinian leaders are
watching closely for signs of change in U.S.
policy toward the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Palestinians were
disappointed with the previous U.S.
administration's failure to take Israel to
task for accelerated settlement construction
in 2008, at a time when the two sides were
holding U.S.-backed peace talks.
Settlement expansion makes
it increasingly difficult to establish an
independent Palestinian state.
...Clinton suggested
Wednesday she is not considering imposing
solutions, saying it's up to the two sides
to reach an agreement. On Tuesday, she said
that working toward the creation of a
Palestinian state as part of a peace
agreement with Israel "seems inescapable."
Clinton said she intends
to hold "very constructive talks with the
new Netanyahu government." Netanyahu is
still trying to form a coalition, and seems
headed for a right-wing government.
Abbas and Clinton,
meanwhile, talked about Gaza's future. After
the Hamas takeover, Israel and Egypt closed
the territory, a policy tacitly supported by
the international community, which shuns
Hamas as a terrorist group.
However, the blockade has
come under renewed scrutiny following
Israel's three-week military offensive
against Hamas, which ended in an informal
cease-fire Jan. 18. Some 15,000 homes were
destroyed or damaged in the war, meant to
halt Palestinian rocket fire on southern
Israel, and international aid officials say
Gaza's borders need to reopen to make
reconstruction possible.
"We want humanitarian aid
to get into Gaza in sufficient amounts to alleviate
the suffering of the people in Gaza,"
Clinton said, but stopped short of calling
for a full opening of the crossings.
Abbas called for an
opening of Gaza's borders to pave the way
for reconstruction.
Currently, Israel allows
several dozen truckloads of aid to get into
Gaza every day, but bars the entry of
concrete, pipes and other materials. Israel
argues that such shipments could be seized
by Hamas and used for building bunkers or
rockets. ...
___ Associated Press
writers Robert Burns and Ben Hubbard in
Ramallah
and Ibrahim Barzak
in Gaza City contributed to this report.
