Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories

The struggle for Jerusalem is being fought on many fronts. Palestinians are feverishly intent upon establishing an official presence in East Jerusalem that Israel will have no choice but to recognize when the city's future is placed on the diplomatic calendar in 1996. Israel's policy of "creating facts" aims at irrevocably changing the face of the city's eastern sector.

Israel's abortive effort to expropriate Palestinian lands in Jerusalem has focused interest on the broader issue of Israeli construction efforts in areas of the city annexed after June 1967. (See map page 5.)

Bowing to an unprecedented convergence of international and domestic political opposition, the Rabin government has decided to reverse a decision to expropriate two plots of land and to suspend further land takings for Israeli housing in annexed East Jerusalem.

From May 12 to May 17, the United Nations Security Council discussed Israel's planned expropriation of lands in East Jerusalem. The resolution calling upon Israel to rescind the expropriation orders was vetoed by the United States. Excerpts from the debate follow.

In May, the Israeli human rights organization, Betzelem, published, "A Policy of Discrimination--Land Expropriation, Planning and Building in East Jerusalem." Its principal conclusions follow: