Rice on the Rampage Against Housing Construction in Jerusalem

Hana Levi Julian

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Israel Sunday ready to rebuke Israel for deciding to approve construction of 1,300 housing units in the capital city.

During her flight to the Middle East late Saturday, Rice told reporters, "We've said before that this is a time to try and build confidence, and this [decision to build homes for Jews in Jerusalem] is simply not helpful to building confidence. And so we'll have a further discussion of it, but I intend to have a discussion of Roadmap obligations generally, and this is obviously a Roadmap obligation that's not being met." Rice maintained that the discrepancy between the views of Israel and the Palestinian Authority over what constitutes a violation of the Roadmap obligations only underscores the need to come to an agreement on final borders as soon as possible.

The status of neighborhoods in the eastern sections of Jerusalem, and for that matter the greater Jerusalem area – which were annexed to Israel 28 years ago – is one of the numerous sore points still proving insurmountable in final status negotiations between the two sides.

"I think it's a problem," Rice said, "that I'm going to address with the Israelis. And it's also, as the President said today, it gives us every reason that we really ought to be determining the boundaries of the state, because what's in Israel will be in Israel at that point, and what's in Palestine will be in Palestine. And that's the best way to resolve this - but you know, I repeat, we've talked a great deal about the importance of Roadmap obligations, and this one isn't being met."

As for whether some of the issues might be resolved and others ultimately left for later – this was a notion Rice squelched instantly:

"Part of the difficulty in negotiations like this is that the issues are intertwined. You know, borders and security, issues concerning Jerusalem, and issues concerning borders, and issues concerning refugees... They're all very intertwined. I believe the parties have adopted the right strategy here, which is that they work on all of them, recognizing that some may move more quickly than others, but also recognizing that nothing can be agreed till everything is agreed. And it's just very difficult to imagine a circumstance under which you could separate somehow the border issue from these other important issues… I've encouraged the parties not to hesitate to push ahead if something is moving, but the idea that you could have a separate agreement, I think that just doesn't make sense."

This is Rice's 18th visit to Israel..