Barak lashes out over East Jerusalem demolition plan.

At a time when Barak is insisting to the UN that they should abandon any inquiry into the deaths of protesters on the freedom flotilla on the grounds that Israel has already set up her own whitewash, one wonders who came up with the timing of this:

Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday lashed out at Jerusalem authorities over plans to demolish Palestinian houses beyond the Green Line in the east of the city.

Barak, who is in the United States for a series of meetings with top officials, faced criticism and demands for explanations after the Jerusalem municipal planning committee decided to destroy 22 houses in the Arab neighborhood of Silwan, which it says were built illegally.

At a time when the Israelis are already under scrutiny over their siege of the Palestinians for daring to vote the wrong way in an election, the timing of this announcement simply couldn't be more inflammatory, as Barak appeared to acknowledge.

"The Jerusalem municipality and the planning committee have shown a lack of common sense and sense of timing – and not for the first time," Barak said.

Of course, it is almost impossible for the Palestinians to receive planning permission from the Israelis to build even on Palestinian land, so the excuse that these structures do not have planning permission is almost meaningless.

And that's before we get to what the implication of this will be for the peace process.

A U.S. spokesman said on Monday that the decision threatened recently restarted peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, under American mediation.

"This is expressly the kind of step that we think undermines trust that is fundamental to making progress in the proximity talks," said State Department spokesman Phillip Crowley.

When one starts demolishing Palestinian homes to increase the hold of settlers in Arab areas then I think it's fair to say that Mayor Nir Barkat isn't a great fan of the peace process anyway.

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Tags: Israel, Palestine, Barak, Nir Barkat