Mideast peace faces new crisis

December 05, 2007

The Palestinian chief negotiator Ahmed Qurei accused Israel of trying to "obstruct negotiations" and he urged the United States to intervene to stop the building of 300 new houses and shops in Arab East Jerusalem. Israel captured East Jerusalem in 1967 and extended the city limits to include a number of West Bank districts. Israel insists that it has a right to build in Jerusalem without compromising the principles of the 2003 roadmap for peace under which the government agreed to stop building new Jewish homes in the occupied West Bank, but not Jerusalem.