Israel's interior minister has given final approval for a plan to build 1,600 settler homes in East Jerusalem, a project whose announcement last year during a visit by US Vice President Joe Biden caused a diplomatic rift with Washington. The official announcement on Thursday of the go-ahead from Interior Minister Eli Yishai could weigh on US-led efforts to dissuade the Palestinians from seeking United Nations endorsement of statehood in the absence of peace talks they suspended over Israeli settlement construction.
Nabil Abu Rdainah, spokesman for the Palestinian presidency, called on the United States, the European Union and other sponsors of the Middle East peace process to pressure the Israeli government to halt the settlement plans. Initial approval for the 1,600 housing units in Ramat Shlomo, a religious Jewish settlement in an area of the West Bank annexed to Jerusalem by Israel, was given in March 2010, casting a shadow on Biden's visit while highlighting US-Israeli differences over such construction.
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