Knesset Speaker Reuven (Ruby) Rivlin told the Lithuanian Ambassador Tuesday at a meeting in Israel that consensus is building in Jerusalem that the capital must remain "out of bounds" during final status negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.
A new demand raised last week by the U.S. for the Jerusalem municipality to halt all construction in the city's Jewish neighborhood of Gilo, he said, is "pushing us toward a red line we cannot afford to cross, and is not legitimate." The right to build in all of unified Jerusalem is not disputed in Israel, he added, noting that "it is an approach that has guided us as part of the international community for 40 years."