Jerusalem plans new Jewish quarters in West Bank
Pastor Dale Morgan
Friday May 11, 2:36 AM
*Jerusalem plans new Jewish quarters in West Bank*
An Israeli newspaper on Thursday disclosed plans to build three new
Jewish neighbourhoods around Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank
sparking Palestinian condemnation.
The plan which foresees the construction of more than 20,000 housing
units has been drawn up by a municipal committee and must still be
approved by national authorities, the Haaretz daily said.
Deputy Mayor Yehoshua Pollak was quoted as saying it aimed to link
Jerusalem with the Gush Etzion bloc of Jewish settlements to the south
and other settlements to the north, around the West Bank political
capital of Ramallah.
In each case, the plan is for 10,000 homes. An additional 500 homes
would be built in the heart of occupied east Jerusalem, near the
Palestinian area of Abu Dis.
A spokesman for the city refused to discuss the project with AFP.
Haaretz said the decision resulted from the fact that the national
planning and construction committee had rejected a plan to expand
Jerusalem westward.
"We condemn this decision, which destroys efforts to relaunch the peace
progress and annihilates any credibility to this process," said chief
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat.
"The Israeli government should choose between colonisation or peace
because the two cannot go together.
"We conveyed official messages to the international community to put
pressure on the Israeli government to reverse this decision," he added.
Jerusalem city councilman Pepe Alalou, a member of the leftist
opposition Meretz party, denounced the project, "whose sole purpose is
to bring about a provocation that could jeopardise the relative calm in
the city."
Israel conquered east Jerusalem in the 1967 war and later annexed it. A
dozen new neighbourhoods have since been built there and house more than
200,000 Israelis. Another 245,000 Palestinians live in that part of the
city.
News of the project comes on the heels of a report that Israel is
concerned by the fact that the number of Arabs living in Jerusalem has
grown twice as fast as the city's Jewish population over the past decade.
A study by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies published on
Wednesday projected that the number of Jews in the city will drop to 60
percent by 2020 from 66 percent, with the Arab population rising from 34
percent to 40 percent.
These demographic developments, and lower costs, have prompted thousands
of Jewish families to leave the city for towns and settlements on the
periphery.
The World Bank warned in a report released on Wednesday that the
depressed West Bank Palestinian economy cannot rebound unless Israel
lifts restrictions on movement that have stymied growth and investment.