Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin. Photo: Itzike/Wikimedia Commons.

A day after Israel approved the construction of 1,500 new housing units in Ramat Shlomo, an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in the northern part of Jerusalem beyond the Green Line, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin (Likud) issued a message to his colleagues around the world insisting that Israel’s decision to build in Jerusalem was “not negotiable,” Israel Hayom reported.

“Israel refuses to accept the fact that mere weeks after rockets were fired from Gaza into Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, there are still those who see Israel’s decision to hold on to strategic territory surrounding Jerusalem, and to build within its capital, as the biggest obstacle standing in the way of peace,” Rivlin wrote in a New Year’s message he sent to the heads of parliaments across Europe and around the world on Tuesday.

Rivlin added that “there is a sense that nations in Europe are more interested in establishing a Palestinian state than in ensuring the safety and existence of the Jewish state.”

“The Europeans are wrong to assume that Israel’s existence is guaranteed and a given,” he wrote.