{ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the European Union Thursday for calling in ambassadors over plans for some 1,800 new homes for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank.}
Netanyahu’s angry remarks come hot on the heels of a public spat between his defence minister and US Secretary of State John Kerry, who is energetically pushing Israel and the Palestinians toward a framework for a peace agreement.
“This is hypocritical. The EU calls our ambassadors in because of the construction of a few houses? When did the EU call in the Palestinian ambassadors about incitement that calls for Israel’s destruction?” Netanyahu asked foreign correspondents at his annual new year reception.
“It’s time to stop this hypocrisy,” he said. “This imbalance… doesn’t advance peace, I think it pushes peace further away.”
Netanyahu’s government announced plans for the new homes in the West Bank, including annexed Arab east Jerusalem, just days after the latest peace mission by US Secretary of State John Kerry who has slammed them as “illegitimate” and “unhelpful.”
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton had said she was “deeply concerned” over the move, adding that settlements were “illegal under international law, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make the two-state solution impossible”.
AFP
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