If reelected, Netanyahu vows wave of E Jerusalem building

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Monday that if reelected he will build thousands of settler homes in Arab east Jerusalem to prevent future concessions to the Palestinians.

Speaking ahead of Tuesday's general election on a whistlestop tour of Har Homa, a contentious settlement neighbourhood of annexed east Jerusalem, Netanyahu vowed he would never allow the Palestinians to establish a capital in the city's eastern sector.

"I won't let that happen. My friends and I in Likud will preserve the unity of Jerusalem," he said of his ruling rightwing party, vowing to prevent any future division of the city by building thousands of new settler homes.

"We will continue to build in Jerusalem, we will add thousands of housing units, and in the face of all the (international) pressure, we will persist and continue to develop our eternal capital," he added.

Israel seized Arab east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.

The Jewish state refers to both halves of the city as its "united, undivided capital" and does not see construction in the eastern sector as settlement building.

Successive Israeli leaders have vowed that Jerusalem will never again be divided -- in war or peace.

The Palestinians want the eastern sector of the city as the capital of their future state.