RICE CRITICIZES ISRAEL FOR BUILDING ON JEWISH LAND

Rice criticizes Israel on settlement building (Reuters)
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Condoleezza Rice criticized Israel on Friday for planning to build new homes on occupied land in the Jerusalem area -- a move Palestinians say could wreck a peace process Rice helped launch last week in Washington.

"We are in a time when the goal is to build maximum confidence with the parties and this doesn't help to build confidence," the U.S. Secretary of State said in rare public censure of Washington's closest ally in the Middle East.

At a news conference at NATO in Brussels after she had met Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni, Rice added: "There should not be anything which might prejudge final-status negotiations.

"It's even more important now that we are on the eve of the beginning of the negotiations. I made that position clear."

Disputed Jerusalem Neighborhood Built on Jewish Land - Julie Stahl (CNSNews)
Israel's Ministry of Construction and Housing this week invited contractors to bid on a contract to build 307 new housing units in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa.

Har Homa is a neighborhood inside the Jerusalem city limits, at the edge of PA-controlled Bethlehem, that has more than 1,000 dwellings, housing some 6,000 residents.

Har Homa sits on 210 acres of land that Jews purchased from local Arab landowners in the 1920s. It is therefore Jewish-owned land, said Israel Kimhi of the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies.

David Baker, an official in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office, said that construction in Har Homa and elsewhere in Jerusalem is not settlement construction, nor is it a violation of Israel's commitment to the first phase of the road map.

There are about 180,000 Israelis who live in neighborhoods like Har Homa that became part of Jerusalem after 1967.