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The most dramatic symbol
of the changes being wrought to Jerusalem, however, is the
issue of land and land
dispossession.
Since 1968, Israel has
expropriated nearly 6,000 of Palestinian land inside Municipal East
Jerusalem, most of it
originally owned by Palestinians. On 44 per cent of this land, no
construction has been
permitted. Of the remainder, 13.5 per cent has been set aside for
Arab development and the
rest has gone to Jewish housing development.
Government-sponsored
housing for the Jewish population has provided 60,000 units to
date and 22,000 more
units are proposed. No such housing has been proposed or
provided for the
Palestinian population. The situation is worsened by another common
Israeli practice. This
is to tear down existing Arab homes or offices, declaring them
unsafe
or illegal
constructions. It is hardly surprising that this occurs, given the
refusal by the Israeli
authorities to grant
building permits to Palestinians.
Geoffrey Aronson, in his
excellent and minutely researched Report on Israeli Settlement in
the Occupied
Territories, which is published every two months in Washington,
points out
that, just to meet
existing needs, Palestinians must build 21,000 dwellings in East
Jerusalem. Permits are
granted at a yearly average of 150, all of which, naturally, must be
privately funded. By
comparison, in January 1995, the Israeli special ministerial
housing
committee approved 4,100
new housing units for Jews in East Jerusalem, as the 1995
share of a four-year
plan for 16,000 houses and apartments there.
Currently, Israeli land
expropriation is less obvious than in the past in Municipal East
Jerusalem. This is
largely because most of the available land has already been
expropriated and little
is left. The practice still continues, however. The settlement of
Gilo,
with a population of
30,000 in southern East Jerusalem, for example, was built on land
confiscated from two
Arab villages, Beit Safafa and Beit Jala. Normally, Palestinian
land
which is zoned as an
area where construction is not permitted is usually declared to be
“green land”. This
designation is easily changed, however, when new Jewish settlements
are to be built or
expanded. In the case of Gilo, two open spaces that were “green”-one
of
them heavily wooded, a
rare sight in the Jerusalem area- have now been expropriated and
the land used to build
new Jewish neighbourhoods: Reches Shu’fat, with 2,000 apartments,
and Har Homa, where
7,500 apartments are planned.
Outside the
Municipality, land annexation is more obvious. The urban sprawl of
Ze’ev
spread south from its
position southwest of Ramallah towards the West Jerusalem suburb
of Ramot. The Israeli
authorities recently seized one hundred acres of west Bank land to
enable this expansion to
take place, even though they are fully aware that such an action is
illegal under
international law, since the land originally belonged to
Palestinians.
The Israeli argument is
that from Ottoman days, down through the British and Jordanian
eras, such regions were
considered “state” lands, and therefore belong to the government-
that is to say, Israel-
for it to use as it sees fit. However, as an occupying power, Israel
has
no right under national
or international law to use such “state” lands, even if this is
their
correct legal
designation. The reality is that Israel has felt able to flout
international opinion
over its policy of land
expropriation because it has enjoyed American backing. Even then,
in the past, American
administrations have condemned the Israeli government’s settlement
policies as “obstacles
to peace” an “illegal but the Clinton administration has taken a
much
more indulgent line.
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