Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has refused to buckle to US pressure to scrap a Jewish building project in East Jerusalem in a crucial telephone conversation with America's top diplomat. Mr Netanyahu ceded little ground to Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, as he finally responded to a series of conditions she set out to end a 10-day standoff between Israel and its superpower patron. The Israeli leader gambled that the Obama administration had lost its appetite for a prolonged diplomatic row by accepting just one of Mrs Clinton's demands in full as he agreed to make a...