WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday delivered a stinging rebuke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his government’s announcement this week of new Jewish housing in east Jerusalem, calling it “a deeply negative signal” for the Mideast peace process and ties with the U.S.
The State Department said Clinton spoke to Netanyahu by phone for 43 minutes to vent U.S. frustration. Netanyahu’s announcement Tuesday cast a pall over a visit to Israel by Vice President Joe Biden and endangered indirect peace talks with the Palestinians that the Obama administration had announced just a day earlier.
The length and unusually blunt tone of Clinton’s call underscored the administration’s concern about prospects for the negotiations it has been trying to organize for more than a year and its anger over Israel’s refusal to heed U.S. appeals not to make provocative gestures.
Clinton called “to make clear that the United States considered the announcement to be a deeply negative signal about Israel’s approach to the bilateral relationship and counter to the spirit of the vice president’s trip,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters.
The harsh criticism of America’s closest Mideast ally comes ahead of a trip to the region by U.S. Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell and a meeting in Moscow next week of the Quartet of Mideast peacemakers that Clinton will attend.
Hours after the call to Netanyahu, the Quartet — the U.S., European Union, United Nations and Russia — denounced the Israeli announcement in a statement from the world body’s headquarters in New York where Clinton was addressing a commission on the status of women and meeting with U.N. chief Ban Ki-Moon.
