Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu returned from Egypt Tuesday evening after day-long talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his foreign minister, who strongly criticized their visitor for continuing construction for Jews in some Jerusalem neighborhoods.
The new building tenders in the predominantly Jewish areas of Har Homa, in southern Jerusalem, and Neveh Yaakov and Pisgat Ze'ev to the north, are located in parts of the capital that the Palestinian Authority claims should be under its sovereignty.
"Such behavior raises questions about the serious willingness of Israel to reach a definitive agreement and leads one to believe that Israel is trying to welch on its obligations for a just and lasting peace," Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit stated to the official MENA news agency.
Obama applying pressure
The meeting between the two leaders was an indication that the United States is exercising heavy pressure on PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas “to accept whatever conditions the Americans may be putting forth,” Mouin Rabbani, a senior fellow at the Institute of Palestinian Studies, told Al Jazeera.
The Obama administration reportedly is drafting letters for both Israel and the PA with unknown guarantees for the resumption of negotiations over the PA’s stated desire to become an independent country.
Former Meretz Knesset Member Yossi Beilin has claimed that the Prime Minister has agreed to negotiate the borders of Jerusalem, which Netanyahu has said is the undivided capital of Israel. Government spokesman Mark Regev replied that "Mr. Beilin only speaks for Mr. Beilin."
U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell is scheduled to arrive in the region next week with what has been touted as a new diplomatic initiative.
The PA, backed by the Arab world, has in effect rejected negotiations until now, by demanding that talks resume only after Israel agrees to accept the borders that existed before the Six-Day War in 1967. The American Roadmap calls for direct negotiations between Israel and the PA concerning the formation of a new Arab state.