ISRAEL’S LAND-GRAB CAMPAIGN IN OLD CITY’S MUSLIM QUARTER

AJP and Agencies
Al-Jazeera Network, Qatar
March 30 2007

The Israeli project in the Muslim quarter is the first since Israel
seized the Old City

The Israeli government is supporting a land-grab campaign that involves
the construction of a Jewish settlement in the Muslim quarter of
Jerusalem’s Old City.

The construction of new homes for Jewish settlers in the Muslim quarter
is the first since Israel took control over the Old City nearly four
decades ago.

The project, called the Flowers Gate development plan, would involve
the construction of more than 20 apartments to expand an adjacent
enclave that only houses two Jewish families. The Israelis also plan to
build a domed synagogue that would alter the skyline of the Old City.

The plan is part of a growing land-grab campaign by Jewish settler
organizations to change the ethnic and physical character of the Old
City’s oldest Arab neighborhoods.

The Israeli government finances the projects that meet the settlers’
goals, which they say would ensure that Israel gets the Old City and
a nearby valley known as the Holy Basin in any final peace agreement
with the Palestinians.

Surrounded by crenelated walls, the Old City is divided into four
quarters — Armenian, Christian, Jewish and Muslim — that contain
some of the holiest sites in Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

The settler organization Ateret Cohanim already began showing
prospective settlers the piece of land designated for the synagogue
and apartments.

Israel’s move to expand the Jewish presence in the Old City and Holy
Basin, a cause of serious concern over the past century, had been
largely dormant since a 1992 state commission found that government
agencies were illegally channeling public money to private settler
organizations.

Palestinian landlord Nasser Karain, whose home is at the center of
the Israelis’ "land-grab" campaign, said that his Jewish neighbors,
whose children are escorted to school by armed guards, have offered
several times to buy his property for millions of dollars. He refused
the most recent bid just months ago.

"I wouldn’t want anyone in this place except family," said Karain,
born 63 years ago in the house he inherited from his father. "I’d be
afraid they’d sell to settlers."

Israel seized the Old City, the Holy Basin valley and the rest of
East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East War.

It later annexed East Jerusalem in a move not recognized
internationally.

The Jewish population of the Old City, all lives in the Jewish quarter,
makes up about 9 percent of the city’s 35,400 residents.

About 250,000 Palestinians live in East Jerusalem.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem its "eternal and indivisible
capital".

But the Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of an
independent future state they hope to establish in the occupied West
Bank and in the Gaza Strip.