Defiant Israel pushes for more settlements`

Israel could advance plans this week for thousands more settlement homes in annexed east Jerusalem in defiance of a landmark UN resolution demanding an end to such activity.

It would mark the first such approvals since Friday's UN Security Council vote demanding a halt to Israeli settlement building in Palestinian territory.

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The resolution, which passed after the United States took the rare move of abstaining, infuriated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who lashed out at President Barack Obama and vowed not to abide by it.

Israel has accused US of orchestrating a "gang-up" against Israel on the UN settlement vote.

A Jerusalem planning committee is set to discuss issuing building permits for 618 housing units today in the mainly Palestinian eastern sector of the city, according to the Ir Amim NGO, which monitors settlement building.

Jerusalem deputy mayor Meir Turjeman, who also heads the committee, has reportedly also spoken of seeking to advance plans for some 5,600 other units.

Yesterday, he told AFP there were no plans to call off discussions in response to the UN vote. The hundreds of building permits were on the agenda before the resolution was passed.

"I'm not concerned by the UN or anything else trying to dictate our actions in Jerusalem,” Turjeman wrote on his Facebook page.

Israel has already taken diplomatic steps in response to what it calls the "shameful" resolution, which passed with support from all the remaining members of the 15-strong Security Council.

Yesterday, the foreign ministry said it was "temporarily reducing" visits and work with embassies of nations that voted for it.

"Until further notice, we'll limit our contacts with the embassies here in Israel and refrain from visits of Israeli officials to those states, and of visits of officials from those states here," foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon told AFP.

On Christmas Day, Israel summoned ambassadors of countries that voted for the resolution while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met US ambassador Daniel Shapiro on Sunday.

Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump yesterday dismissed the United Nations as a “club” for people to “have a good time”. He, however, did not specifically mention the UN Security Council resolution.

He wrote: “The United Nations has such great potential but right now it is just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time. So sad!”

Trump, who last week said Washington should have used its veto to block the resolution, has chosen as ambassador to Israel the hardliner David Friedman, who has said Washington will not pressure Israel to curtail settlement building in the occupied West Bank.

Israel has already called back its ambassadors to New Zealand and Senegal for consultations, and cancelled aid programmes with the African state.

Yesterday, Israel informed Angola it would be freezing its aid programme there.

At least two trips have been cancelled or postponed, including this week's visit to Israel by Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman and an upcoming visit by the Senegalese foreign minister.

There have also been reports that Netanyahu was calling off a meeting with British Prime Minister Theresa May at next month's World Economic Forum in Davos, but there has been no official confirmation.

CNN reports that two senior Israeli officials claim Israel is curtailing business with 12 of the 14 member states that helped pass the resolution. The states are listed as Britain, France, Russia, Japan, Angola, Uruguay, Senegal, China, Ukraine, Egypt, Spain and New Zealand.

Security Council members such as Russia, China and Britain are key to Israeli diplomacy or trade and some analysts suggested the measures being taken were more symbolic than substantive.

Washington is Israel's most important ally and provides it with more than $3 billion per year in defence aid.

By declining to use its veto, the US enabled the adoption of the first UN resolution since 1979 to condemn Israel over its settlement policy.

Obama's administration has been frustrated with settlement building in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, which Israel occupied in 1967. Israel later annexed east Jerusalem in a move never recognised by the international community.

Settlements are built on land the Palestinians view as part of their future state and seen as illegal under international law.

Some 430,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and 200,000 Israelis live in east Jerusalem, which Palestinians see as the capital of their future state.

The UN resolution demands "Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem."

It says settlements have "no legal validity" and are "dangerously imperilling the viability of the two-state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the basis of years of negotiations.

The resolution contains no sanctions but Israeli officials are concerned it could widen the possibility of prosecution at the International Criminal Court. They are also worried it could encourage some countries to impose sanctions against Israeli settlers and goods produced in the settlements.