Israel has temporarily frozen a housing project in Jerusalem after the Americans said the timing of its approval would embarrass visiting US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

The Jerusalem Municipality was this week slated to approve the construction of 100 new housing units in the Nof Zion neighborhood on the eastern side of the city, which the Palestinians claim as their future capital.

Channel 12 News reported that the US Embassy asked Israel to postpone the matter and not approve what the world sees as a “Jewish settler project” while Sullivan was in Jerusalem.

Sullivan’s boss, President Joe Biden, was embarrassed and subsequently enraged when Israel approved the construction of 1,600 housing units in another eastern Jerusalem neighborhood just before he visited as Vice President back in 2010.

The Biden White House has vowed to fight efforts by the new right-wing Israeli government to strengthen the Jewish state’s hold on Jerusalem and the biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria.