Jerusalem municipality settlement expansion plans spark warnings of another land grab

RAMALLAH: The Israeli Municipality of Jerusalem, working with the Shikon Vibinoy company, has published plans for a settlement expansion that would result in the appropriation of more Palestinian land.
Under the proposal, the number of housing units in the Givat Hamatos settlement, built on land in the Palestinian town of Beit Safafa, would increase from 300 to 1,500. Beit Safafa is mostly located in East Jerusalem, with some of its northern territory in West Jerusalem.
The settlement expansion would permanently destroy Palestinian geographical contiguity between East Jerusalem and Bethlehem, analysts said, and prevent Beit Safafa being part of a future Palestinian state.
“Israel solves the social and real estate problems in West Jerusalem by expanding settlements in the east of the city,” said Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher with Ir Amim, a nonprofit organization founded in 2004 with the mission of making Jerusalem a more equitable and sustainable city for its Israeli and Palestinian residents.
“The expansion of building rights in Givat Hamatos is in complete contradiction of the Jerusalem municipality’s plans for Palestinians in the east of the city.
“When it comes to Israelis, the municipality allows construction work on large scales, especially in areas outside the Green Line, as it always finds a way to ignore planning considerations and previous decisions issued by the planning committee. On the other hand, any plan that the Palestinians push for adoption is refused under various excuses.”
Settlement affairs expert Khalil Tafakji told Arab News that when Barack Obama was US president, this particular settlement project was paused as a result of pressure from Germany, because it would have seized parts of land belonging to the Lutheran Church.
He said settlement activity in Jerusalem “remains a priority for all Israeli parties, whether right wing, left wing or any other, because Israel considers it the indivisible capital” that will not be shared with Palestinians.
For a time, approved settlement projects in East Jerusalem were not implemented because of international pressure, Tafakji said, but “the Israeli government is taking advantage of the (current) global conditions to implement them” now.
Israeli settlement projects in Jerusalem are not limited to building more housing units, they also include new infrastructure, such as the American Street in the Palestinian town of Sur Baher, east of Jerusalem, and tunnels in the Beit Jala area. There is also a proposal is to construct 1,600 settlement units in Kiryat Shlomo as part of the Greater Jerusalem Plan 2050.
At the same time authorities are working to build more settlement units in Jerusalem for Israelis, they are demolishing the homes of Palestinians in the east of the city under various pretexts and will not grant them permits to build new houses, in what analysts have described as an attempt to change the demographic nature of the city.
Palestinians consider East Jerusalem to be the capital of their future state. According to Tafakji, 350,000 Palestinians currently live there, compared with 230,000 settlers, in an area of Jerusalem “equivalent to 1.2 percent of the size of the West Bank.”
He added: “However, the Israeli government seeks to link the settlements surrounding Jerusalem, such as Gush Etzion and Ma’ale Adumim, to Jerusalem through a series of tunnels, to increase its area. The idea is to make it equivalent to 10 percent of the size of the West Bank, in line with the Greater Jerusalem Plan.”
The tunnels and bridges Israeli authorities are building are designed to make it easier for settlers living in the West Bank and working in Jerusalem to move easily between home and work.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it condemns all forms of Israeli colonial settlement activity in Palestinian territories, whether it involves building thousands of houses, as in Jerusalem, allocating millions of dollars to build roads, or the seizure of Palestinian land, as in Qalqilya governorate and other places.
The ministry also denounced escalations in attacks by settlers on Palestinians, their land, livestock, properties, homes and shops throughout the occupied West Bank.
It said it considers settlement expansion to be deliberate Israeli sabotage of any chance to establish a Palestinian state, in defiance of international protests and resolutions that have condemned such activity and have demanded it immediately be halted.
“It is also a systematic destruction of the chances of survival and steadfastness of successive Palestinian generations in their homeland, Palestine, and open war on our people and their rights,” the ministry added.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, the day before Eid Al-Fitr, the Israeli army arrested 17 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including a journalist, during raids in a number of areas during which they used live ammunition, stun grenades and tear gas.