Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said Tuesday that Israel had an "indisputable" right to build anywhere in Jerusalem, including East Jerusalem, following international calls on Israel to halt construction in the disputed area.
The calls come in response to Israel's plan to build some 20 apartments for Jews in the Shepherd Hotel, in East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. The U.S. has demanded that the project be halted, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the cabinet meeting on Sunday that "Israel will not agree to edicts of this kind in East Jerusalem."
The Russian Foreign Ministry joined the calls on Israel to scrap the plan, and in response, Ayalon said that "Israel has and will continue to act in accordance with its national interests, especially when it comes to Jerusalem."
Earlier Tuesday, the French news agency AFP quoted Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying that "The settlement should be stopped immediately in line with the roadmap [peace plan]." France also objected to the planned construction, with the French foreign minister saying that Israel's ambassador to France had been summoned over the affair.
"Israel's government is not a subsidiary of any other world government," Channel 10 quoted Shas Chairman Eli Yishai as saying. "Israel's government and the state of Israel are free to build anywhere in Israel, certainly after having obtained all the relevant permits by law."
Science Minister Daniel Hershkowitz also issued a response to the Russian demand, Channel 10 reported, saying that "Israel must reject international pressure and the challenges to its sovereignty in Jerusalem. Anyone who opposes construction in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Israel's capital might also oppose construction in the Sheikh Munis neighborhood in Tel Aviv."
Meanwhile Tuesday, a senior member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party also urged Israel not to build more settlements, warning it risked political suicide if it continued to do so.
In unusually strong comments for a German politician, Ruprecht Polenz, the head of parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, was quoted as saying Israel's aim of having secure borders would only be possible with a two-state solution.
If Israel did not stop building settlements it ran the risk "of gradually committing suicide as a democratic state," Polenz told the Rheinische Post daily.
Enjoying safe borders would only be conceivable for Israel if East Jerusalem could operate as the capital of a Palestinian state, said Polenz. But he added Israel was trying to cut off East Jerusalem from the West Bank by building more settlements.
"Israel is overlooking the fact that neither Palestinians nor Arab states will agree to a solution without East Jerusalem," Polenz told the paper.
Separately, European Union president Sweden urged Israel to refrain from evicting Palestinians and demolishing their homes in East Jerusalem.
A United Nations report in May said some 1,500 demolition orders were pending for homes built without a permit from Israel's Jerusalem Municipality in the east of the city.
The Swedish president said such actions were illegal under international law and called for them to end.
"These eviction notices follow other recent orders which adversely affect Palestinians living in East Jerusalem and, combined with the increase in settlement activity in East Jerusalem, further threaten the chances of peace."
