TIMES OF ISRAEL
Blinken initiated call with PM amid doubts Israel actually called off Atarot plan
by Jacob Magid
December 3, 2021

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken initiated a phone call with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Wednesday night to express his dismay over Israeli plans to advance a controversial East Jerusalem housing project despite signaling last week that it had shelved the plan, sources familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel. The phone call was “intense,” an official said, with Blinken expressing the Biden administration’s vehement opposition to the 9,000-home plan in Atarot, which supporters of a two-state solution argue would mark a death knell for the proposal by creating a wedge in the middle of Palestinian contiguity between Ramallah and East Jerusalem. READ MORE