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"The Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee is set to approve an unprecedented master plan that calls for the expansion of Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem....The committee's proposal would codify the municipality's planning policy for the entire city," those objecting allowed 60 days to respond. However, at this "stage in the planning process," rarely ever are plans altered, its approval "a fate accompli," regardless of criticisms voiced.
Envisioned for years, architects have been working on it for over a decade to replace an earlier 1959 plan, eight years before the Six Day War. Once approved, accelerated Palestinian home demolitions and dispossessions will follow, Al Jazeera reporting on June 22 that 22 Silwan neighborhood homes will be replaced by a new tourist center, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat announced, final approval pending, Silwan residents saying it "fast-track(s the city's) Judaisation," preempting "the possibility of Jerusalem ever being a shared city, or indeed capital of a Palestinian state. This in itself precludes peace."
Israeli officials said all 88 Silwan homes are illegal. The remaining 66 may retroactively apply for construction permits, but under a Kafkaesque approval process, all may be demolished, replaced by parks, open spaces, restaurants, boutique hotels, and Jewish only housing - 70 Jewish families already living in Silwan. Others will follow, the same pattern repeated throughout the city - Palestinians displaced, their homes demolished and land expropriated to make all Jerusalem exclusively Jewish, in violation of international law, Fourth Geneva prohibiting property destruction and land seizures in occupied territory.
On June 26, the Palestine Monitor reported that "Hundreds of Israelis joined Palestinians and international peace activists in (Silwan) streets, (protesting) the decision to destroy Palestinian homes, (a) historic show of support....," likely to fare no better than opposition to other Israeli plans over the past decade, failing to stop about 900 demolitions displacing Palestinians.
Through June 2009, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) reported thousands more - an estimated 24,145 in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza since 1967, 4,247 alone during Cast Lead, others occurring regularly, illegal under international law, what Israel disdains and rejects, even though a signatory to many, including Geneva.
Under its illegal expropriation policy, B'Tselem reported that the "the Israeli government has choked (Palestinian) development and building...." In June 1967, it annexed nearly 18,000 acres in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, incorporating them within Jerusalem's borders, over one-third expropriated, most of it Arab-owned, then used for thousands of Jews only housing, none for the city's Palestinians.
"The Jerusalem Municipality did not establish outline plans for the Palestinian areas. The few (approved) plans....were primarily to prevent new construction by declaring broad expanses of land 'green areas,' restricting" construction. Overall, the Municipality enforces building laws "much more stringently" on Palestinians than on Jews, "even though the number of violations is much higher in the Jewish neighborhoods."
East Jerusalem "Aggressive Urbanism"
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