Condolezza Rice/JPost

       In comments that threaten Israel's hold on east Jerusalem, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that the US does not consider it legitimate for Israel to build homes in some neighborhoods of the capital which are located beyond the Green Line. In a conversation held in the ornate antechamber of her office, she went further than US officials have previously gone toward clarifying her government's position on the matter. Her remarks set the stage for a confrontation over the issue when Rice and US President George W. Bush visit Israel this week and try to move the peace process forward. Israel, which annexed east Jerusalem after the 1967 war, does not equate the capital's Jewish neighborhoods over the Green Line with the settlements located in the West Bank. As such, it does not believe that construction there is bound by its obligation under the road map peace plan, which calls for a freeze of all settlement activity. But Rice on Monday clarified that the US believes that portions of east Jerusalem are considered to be "settlements" and that Israel must stop building there as part of its commitment to implement the first phase of the road map. Rice said "the United States doesn't make a distinction" between settlement activity in east Jerusalem and the West Bank and that the road map obligations are on "settlement activity generally." She was speaking during an interview conducted by the Post and Ynet ahead of her departure for the region. Rice referred specifically to Jerusalem's Har Homa enclave as one such proscribed neighborhood. "Har Homa is a settlement the United States has opposed from the very beginning," she said in response to a question from the Post. (10,04)