"Gilo is not a settlement nor an outpost. It is a neighborhood in the very heart of Jerusalem about five minutes from the center of town."
"In every peace plan on the table in the past 18 years Gilo stays part of Jerusalem and therefore this planning decision in no way contradicts the current Israel government's desire for peace based on two states for the two peoples."
In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Netanyahu addressed the Gilo building project saying,"We have so many planning stages, so many phases of approval that every time a plan moves through one of these stages, it gets world headlines."
Netanyahu added:
"We plan in Jerusalem. We build in Jerusalem. Period. The same way Israeli governments have been doing for 44 years, since the end of the 1967 war. We build in Jewish neighborhoods, the Arabs build in Arab neighborhoods."