Israel plans to build new homes in Arab East Jerusalem

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The Israeli plan has yet to be ratified by national authorities. It would set up three separate Jewish neighborhoods on land annexed after the war of 1967.

Yehoshua Pollak, chairman of Jerusalem's planning and construction committee, said that the housing would be intended for young Israeli couples.

Saeb Erekat, Palestinian chief negotiator, condemned the plan, saying that the Israeli government should choose between settlements and peace.

He said, "We conveyed official messages to the international community to put pressure on the Israeli government to reverse this decision."

Israel's settlements are not recognized internationally. Previously, the UN human rights council voted to support their removal.

About 200,000 Jews live in eastern Jerusalem among approximately 230,000 Palestinians who are legal residents. If the proposed housing is constructed, it will create a Jewish residential bloc linking Jerusalem with the southern bloc of Gush Etzion and northern settlements near Ramallah in the West Bank.

500 homes would also be constructed in the heart of occupied east Jerusalem near Abu Dis, a Palestinian area.

Jerusalem city council official and member of the opposition Meretz party Pepe Alalou said that the project's "sole purpose is to bring about a provocation that could jeopardize the relative calm in the city."

A few months ago, a plan to build 20,000 homes in western Jerusalem was not approved after objections by environmentalists. Pollak said, "After [that] plan was scrapped, the city had to look for other alternatives to provide housing for its growing population."

The announcement of this project follows the publication of an Israeli report that the number of Arabs in Jerusalem has increased twice as fast as the number of Jews in the last decade.

"The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies projected that the number of Jews in the city will drop to 60 per cent by 2020 from 66 per cent, with the Arab population rising from to [sic] 40 per cent from 34 per cent."

Israel looks on all of Jerusalem as its capital, but Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future Palestinian state.

I think the proposed housing is a bad move by the Israeli government. Saeb Erekat's statement about Israel choosing between settlements and peace is an astute one. If the housing goes through, I believe that Palestinians will look on Israel as less than sincere when it says it wants to work for peace. I do think this will provoke a violent response.

Of course, it is unfortunate that housing is discussed in terms of "Israeli" housing and "Palestinian" housing. I wish the level of discourse in the Middle East could finally rise above identity politics. Until it does, I do not know if peace and stability will occur. When we are so concerned with what people "are," or what we perceive them to "be," and as long as we (as with immigration in the United States) are so bothered about where people are, we are not really moving forward.