Jewish families are moving into a new settlement in Arab East Jerusalem in what peace activists say is a recipe for violence ahead of the presentation of a US-backed "road map" for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
The activists condemned the move into the Ras al-Amoud neighbourhood, saying it would increase friction with Palestinians as international mediators try to calm 30 months of violence with a plan that includes a settlement freeze.
Eyal Hareuveni, director of the Jerusalem branch of the Israeli group Peace Now, said he suspected the settlers' move was made during the war in Iraq to avoid criticism from a preoccupied United States.
"This is a settler group, extremists who want to transfer the Arabs (out of their homeland). This is only a recipe for friction and violence," said Hareuveni.
Athough focused on the war on Iraq, the United States has called on Israel to halt settlement activity and could increase pressure once the "road map" drawn by Washington, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia is unveiled.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell told European leaders on Thursday that Washington would present the proposal once a new reformist Palestinian cabinet took office.
The Jewish settlement in Ras al-Amoud is an apartment complex that will have 140 flats when it is finished. Fifty have been completed and 35 sold, said Arieh King, a member of one of the five families that have moved in.
A man in the parking lot of the enclave, which was funded by Miami-based Orthodox Jewish millionaire Irving Moskowitz, insisted a reporter leave the premises and refused to answer any questions.
Commenting on Ras al-Amoud on Saturday, Lou Fintor, a spokesman at the US State Department, called it "simply inconsistent" with President George W. Bush's vision of Israeli and Palestinian states living in peace.
But King accused the peace activists of incitement and said relationships with Arab neighbours were good.
"We were living down the street from the complex for the past five-and-half years, 20 metres away," said King. "Now there is a problem because we have new homes? What do they care?"
Ras al-Amud resident Hussein Zagal said that the Jews who had moved in up the street ..."weren't the problem."
"The problem is bigger than that," said Zagal, a 30-year-old Muslim who believes that Israel should be replaced by an Islamic state.
A second Palestinian, who declined to give his name, said he would not have a problem drinking coffee with his Jewish neighbours but said Israeli policies and treatment of Palestinians were arousing tremendous anger.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem and made it part of its declared capital after capturing it from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East War, in a move not recognised internationally.
Palestinians seek the city's eastern sector as the capital of their anticipated state.