The "Quartet" (the United States, Russia, European Union and United Nations) has overseen the negotiations - often called "the roadmap" - since 2003. Their statement came at a donor's meeting in Paris where $7.4 billion in aid was pledged to Palestine.
Palestinian officials have said the construction of the houses in a disputed East Jerusalem neighborhood known to the Israelis as Har Homa and the Palestinians as Jabal Abu Ghneimi could derail the roadmap talks, making Israel's decision to announce the construction of the housing units at this time all the more puzzling. Both Israel and Palestine committed to serious negotiations to the creation of a Palestinian state by the end of 2008 at a public conference last month in Annapolis Maryland.
In the past four years the two sides have been unable to move beyond step one in the roadmap, a commitment by the Palestinians to control terror attacks against Israel, and for Israel halt the construction of "settlements" in the West Bank, land that would make up the bulk of a future Palestinian state.
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