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US VP Biden is in Israel - whilst the Israelis with their announcement to build some 1600 dwellings in East Jerusalem has thrown a decided spanner in the works for any resumed peace talks, even if not direct Palestinian to Israeli.

Now Haaretz reports that even worse is in the pipeline in relation to more dwellings - no less than 50,000 new units:

"Some 50,000 new housing units in Jerusalem neighborhoods beyond the Green Line are in various stages of planning and approval, planning officials told Haaretz. They said Jerusalem's construction plans for the next few years, even decades, are expected to focus on East Jerusalem.

Most of the housing units will be built in predominantly Jewish neighborhoods beyond the Green Line, while a smaller number of them will be built in Arab neighborhoods. The plans for some 20,000 of the apartments are already in advanced stages of approval and implementation, while plans for the remainder have yet to be submitted to the planning committees.

The planned construction includes the 1,600 homes in the ultra-Orthodox East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo that were approved Tuesday. Saying the decision undermines peace talks, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has publicly condemned the move, which the Interior Ministry announced during his visit to Israel."

Now this will do wonders to stalling anything remotely connected to searching for a resolution of the on-going Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

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