Israeli forces demolish Shepherd Hotel

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=349404JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli bulldozers began demolishing the Shepherd Hotel in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem on Sunday under the protection of a huge force of Israeli police and border guards.

Israeli authorities leveled the hotel to make way for a new settlement. The initial plan is to build 20 Jewish-only residential units, Ma'an's Jerusalem correspondent reported.

Secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative Mustafa Barghouthi described the demolition as further evidence of Israel's policy of ethnic cleansing, which he said exposed the real plots against Jerusalem.

The Israeli government was building new settlements in the occupied city to eradicate the Palestinian presence and to change Jerusalem into a Jewish-only city, Barghouthi added.

The displacement was the work of a "settlers' government," he said.

Jewish-American millionaire Irving Moskowitz purchased the hotel in 1985. In 2009 he announced plans to level the building which predates the 1948 creation of Israel. US President Barack Obama's administration urged Israel to stop the plan. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused the request.

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations relaunched on September 2 but collapsed by the end of the month over Israel's settlement expansion policy.

Netanyahu rejected calls from the US, UN and the EU to extend a partial freeze on settlement construction which expired on September 26.

On December 7, Washington admitted it had failed to convince Netanyahu to stop building on occupied land, a policy which contravenes international law and the Geneva Convention.

Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed it in a move never recognized by the rest of the world.