Jerusalem's city hall cancelled a vote Wednesday on applications to build nearly 500 new homes for Israelis in East Jerusalem, a municipal official said, plans that had drawn U.S. criticism in a raging dispute over settlements.The proposed settlement is part of building activity that the U.N. Security Council demanded an end to on Friday, a resolution that a U.S. abstention made possible.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu requested the decision be put off, said Jerusalem Planning and Housing Committee member Hanan Rubin. A spokesman for Netanyahu had no immediate comment.Rubin said 492 permits for construction of homes for Israelis in the urban settlements of Ramot and Ramat Shlomo, in areas that Israel captured in a 1967 war and annexed to Jerusalem, had been up for approval.The United States on Friday broke with a longstanding approach of diplomatically shielding Israel and abstained on the Security Council resolution, which passed with 14 countries in favor and none against. The committee meets regularly, and it could consider approving the permits at a future date. Israel has for decades pursued a policy of building Jewish settlements on occupied territory Palestinians seek for a state.Most countries view the settlements as an obstacle to peace. Israel disagrees, citing a biblical, historical and political connection to the land, as well as security interests. Washington considers the settlement activity illegitimate. Some 570,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem among more than 2.6 million Palestinians.U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry late yesterday was scheduled to speak to reporters about the U.S. decision to abstain in last week's vote and present a new vision for the peace process.Meanwhile, Netanyahu has been unrelenting in his criticism of the Obama administration over what he condemned as its "shameful" decision not to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a halt to Israeli settlement-building.He has tried to rally Israelis around him by attempting to portray the anti-settlement resolution as a challenge to Israel's claimed sovereignty over all of Jerusalem.That all of Jerusalem is their country's capital is a consensus view among Israelis, including those who otherwise have doubts about the wisdom of Netanyahu's support for settlements on the West Bank.Palestinians claim eastern Jerusalem as their capital, and Washington has in the past accepted an international view that the city's status must be determined at future peace talks. But Trump has promised to reverse decades of U.S. policy by moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.The resolution adopted on Friday at the U.N. changes nothing on the ground between Israel and the Palestinians and likely will be all but ignored by the incoming Trump administration.However, Israeli officials fear it could spur further Palestinian moves against Israel in international forums.But more trouble for the Israeli leader could be ahead at a planned 70-nation, French-hosted conference on Middle East peace due to convene in Paris on Jan. 15, five days before Obama hands over to Trump."(Netanyahu) fears there is a U.S.-French move brewing before January 20th, possibly a declarative step at the French peace convention," said an Israeli official who attended an Israeli security cabinet session on Sunday.