Bernier's silence raises questions

The phalanx of white stone buildings stands incongruously amid a landscape of craggy hills, thin forests and tiny farming villages.

Unlike the centuries-old scene that sprawls around it, Har Homa, as the controversial housing project is known, is thick with modern multistorey homes and strip malls - as well as cranes working to make room for thousands of more Jewish residents.

The 7,000 people who now live in Har Homa are almost uniformly Israeli Jews who reside on territory seized from Jordan after the 1967 war. Under international law, it's an illegal settlement built on occupied land.

Or is it? Canada's Foreign Minister, Maxime Bernier, seemed unsure yesterday.

At a press conference in Ramallah alongside Palestinian foreign minister Riad Malki, Mr. Bernier said Canada opposes any move by Israel to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank as "contrary to the peace process."

But when asked, twice, whether the blanket statement included Har Homa - where Israel recently announced plans to build hundreds of new housing units - Mr. Bernier declined to answer.

The future of Har Homa may determine the success or failure of the peace process launched last month by U.S. President George W. Bush.

It all boils down to whether or not Har Homa can be defined as a settlement. If it is - and most of the international community thinks so - construction was supposed to have halted in line with Israel's commitments.

If it isn't, then many believe the process launched in Annapolis, Md., is all for naught. Just as Israelis say there can be no peace as long as Palestinian militants continue to fire rockets from Gaza, few Palestinians will put faith in negotiations so long as Israel continues to build Jewish housing in the occupied West Bank.

Which is why Mr. Bernier's silence turned heads in Ramallah yesterday. By refusing to condemn the building at Har Homa, Mr. Bernier appeared to have made Canadian foreign policy the most pro-Israeli in the world. Last week, even the United States, usually Israel's staunchest ally, slammed the new construction here.

When pressed for an explanation of Mr. Bernier's non-answer, Foreign Affairs officials would only repeat the minister's broad statement, without mention of Har Homa.

Mr. Bernier received a long briefing on Israeli-Palestinian matters before his two-day visit to the region yesterday - suggesting that his silence was not the result of ignorance.

Tacitly accepting construction at Har Homa would mark a shift in Canada's position. When digging first began in 1997 at the site, Canada was among 134 United Nations members to condemn the construction, with Israel, the U.S. and Micronesia as the only dissenters.

A shift would hardly be a first for the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. At the urging of Jewish and pro-Israeli lobby groups, the Conservative government has moved to change its position on 13 separate long-standing United Nations resolutions pertaining to Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Asked about the shift in Canada's Middle East policy, Mr. Malki appeared to acknowledge some disagreements. "We believe in quiet diplomacy and that means a frank, open discussion with Canada," he said. "If we have any issues to raise with Canada we will do it this way."

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Palestinian official who attended the meeting said Mr. Malki raised the issue of Har Homa "very strongly."

Later in the day, Mr. Bernier had separate meetings with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. He meets today with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

Though part of the land Har Homa was built on was Jewish-owned, much of it was seized from Palestinians living in neighbouring villages. According to Israel's Haaretz newspaper, most of the new construction will take place on land expropriated from Palestinians deemed "absentee landlords" because they live on the wrong side of the barrier Israel is constructing to separate the West Bank from Israel. Few Har Homa residents, however, see anything wrong with that.

"Why build more homes here? Why not? It's Jerusalem, it's for the Jews," said Dov Cohen, a 42-year-old shoe store employee who moved to Har Homa just over two years ago.

The adjacent Palestinian village of Umm Tuba - its dirty streets clogged with scampering children and plodding farm animals - feels a world away from the wide and tidy streets of Har Homa. Though both pay taxes to the state of Israel, there's not even a sign to mark the sharp dirt off ramp to Umm Tuba from the highway that runs between the two communities.

Abid Abu Teir, a 47-year-old engineering professor whose family has deeds for part of the land Har Homa is built on, said he has no hope the international community will help his family get its land back.

"In 1997, the whole world was against it, but Israel was allowed to create facts on the ground," he said. "What's left for the Palestinians? What is there to negotiate about?"