Israel rejects US call to halt Jerusalem project - USATODAY.com

Israel rejects US call to halt Jerusalem project - USATODAY.com: "Israel on Sunday rejected a U.S. demand to suspend a planned housing project in east Jerusalem, threatening to further complicate an unusually tense standoff with its strongest ally over settlement construction.

Israeli officials said the country's ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, was summoned to the State Department over the weekend and told that a project being developed by an American millionaire should not go ahead.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Cabinet there would be no limits on Jewish construction anywhere in 'unified Jerusalem.'

'We cannot accept the fact that Jews wouldn't be entitled to live and buy anywhere in Jerusalem,' Netanyahu declared, calling Israeli sovereignty over the entire city 'indisputable.'

The international community considers Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem to be settlements and an obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. Israel does not regard them as settlements because it annexed east Jerusalem in 1967 after capturing it in June of that year."