December 23, 2012

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Western Wall belongs to Israel, despite what the United Nations says, Israeli Prime Minister said in interviews with Israel’s three major networks.

“The Western Wall has always been and always will belong to Israel,” Netanyahu said Saturday in pre-election interviews with main Israeli channels 1, 2 and 10. “We have resided in the Jewish nation’s capital for 3,000 years. The Western Wall is not occupied territory and I don’t care what the U.N. says about that.”

Netanyahu said the announcement of plans to build Jewish housing in the E1 area of Jerusalem and in other Jerusalem neighborhoods was not due to the upcoming Jan. 22 elections, but rather a response to the Palestinians’ decision to appeal to the United Nations General Assembly for enhanced statehood status.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said over the weekend that the P.A. would stop Netanyahu from authorizing building in the E1 area, which connects the West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim to Jerusalem, an area that the Palestinians say is necessary to keep the borders of a Palestinian state contiguous.

The housing is still in the planning stages and construction is a long way off, according to reports                                                                                                                                                    

Abbas called building in E1 “a red line and we will not allow it to happen.”

“We are holding contacts on all levels to stop this Israeli project that aims to sabotage the peace process,” Abbas told the Fatah Advisory Council, according to the WAFA Palestine News and Information Agency.
 

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