Jerusalem council okays 600 new Jewish homes in Arab area

Haaretz Last update - 21:54 31/03/2008
By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service

The municipality of Jerusalem on Monday approved the construction of 600 new homes in Pisgat Zeev, east of the Green Line. Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski approved the expansion in Pisgat Zeev - a Jewish settlement surrounded by Arab towns in the West Bank - as part of a plan to construct 40,000 more homes in the area as foreign interest drives property prices up. Also Monday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised the spiritual leader of the Shas Party, Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, that he would authorize construction on "Jerusalem envelope" lands which have been thus far frozen, sources from the ultra-Orthodox Party said.

"The Prime Minister promised Rabbi [Yosef] unequivocally that the construction in all the Jerusalem envelope communities will not be hindered and will be unfrozen without delay," sources from the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party said. The sources added that the rabbi had made clear to Olmert "with conviction" that the issue of construction in the ultra-Orthodox towns in Arab areas surrounding Jerusalem "are Shas' top priority," and that he will ask party chairman Eli Yishai to continue updating him on the matter.

During an earlier Kadima faction meeting at the Knesset on Monday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert denied a report by the Peace Now movement claiming that Israeli construction in the West Bank had been stepped up. "All the reports of dramatic construction projects in the [Palestinian] territories are not true, and it's not true that we're building in violation of commitments that were made," Olmert told a meeting of his Kadima Party. Olmert also said Israel would continue to build in East Jerusalem and in heavily Jewish areas of the West Bank that Israel wants to keep in a final peace agreement.

"This is going on within the framework of negotiations, and the negotiations will continue to progress," he said. Meanwhile, the Yesha Council of Settlements said Monday it would continue to build in West Bank settlements, even without the necessary government authorizations. "Whoever thinks that an administrative step can smother the settlement enterprise and prevent it from flourishing is mistaken," said a Yesha council statement. "Either the government will approve construction in the settlements, or the natural development of the settlements will continue to grow, even without government permits."

The statement came in response to a Peace Now report released Monday that noted expansion in 101 West Bank settlements, including at least 500 buildings, each containing dozens of apartments. The report, which summarizes the first quarter of 2008, also found that Defense Minister Ehud Barak recently approved a plan to construct at least 969 housing units in settlements - 750 in the Agan Ayalon neighborhood of Givat Ze'ev and 48 in Ariel. The report also notes that at least 184 new caravans have bee installed in West Bank settlements, at least 83 percent of them east of the separation fence.

Peace Now: Momentum for Jewish construction in E. J'lem 'unprecedented'

Peace Now accused the government of stepping up Jewish construction in East Jerusalem at an unprecedented rate, in a report released Monday. "In the last two months, an unprecedented momentum has been noted in the Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, with the intentions of expanding deep into Palestinian territories east of the Green Line," said the report. According to the report, since the Annapolis Summit last November, tenders have been made for the construction of 750 housing units in East Jerusalem, compared to two tenders for 46 units in 2007. The construction comes despite the recently revived peace process and Barak's pledge to ease conditions for Palestinians in the West Bank.

New home for ex-Gaza settlers: Deep in W.Bank Prime Minister Ehud Olmert recently approved the construction of the 48 new apartments in Ariel, deep inside the northern West Bank. Last week, Olmert told foreign correspondents that Israel is not building in the territories outside the settlement blocs. Ariel has been considered a settlement bloc by all Israeli governments, but the United States refuses to recognize it as such. Because of Washington's objections, Ariel Mayor Ron Nahman used to complain that former defense minister Amir Peretz consistently refused all his requests for permission to build new housing in the city. But Peretz's successor in the ministry, Ehud Barak, ended the freeze.

Barak's office said in a statement that the new construction was meant to allow evacuated Gaza settlers, who had relocated to Ariel with the government's consent, to move from temporary to permanent housing. Last week, Haaretz reported that Barak also approved bringing five trailer homes to the settlement of Tene Omarim to house evacuated Gaza settlers. That settlement is located east of the separation fence, meaning that Israel almost certainly does not intend to keep it under any future agreement.