Israel Builds Greater Jerusalem at the Site of the Eternal City

Jerusalem is a city of many, often competing definitions. It is a spiritual center for Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, the "reunified" capital of the State of Israel, and the focus of Palestinian aspirations for political independence.

In the wake of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, West Jerusalem, the portion captured by Israeli forces, was declared the capital of the new state. The Arab sector of the city, East Jerusalem, which included the walled Old City and major religious shrines, was annexed by Jordan. Neither Israel's declaration of West Jerusalem as its capital nor a similar Jordanian declaration on East Jerusalem in 1960 were recognized by the international community. Those views continued to be expressed by the United Nations General Assembly's Partition Resolution (181) of November 1947 calling for Jerusalem's internationalization: "The City of Jerusalem shall be established as a corpus separatum under a special international regime and shall be administered by the United Nations. . . ."

Israel's June 1967 conquest of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, created the opportunity to "reunify" East and West Jerusalem under exclusive Israeli control.

Annexation provided Israel with the opportunity for residential construction for Israelis in the newly acquired Arab sector of the city. During the last quarter century, the program has aimed at creating a permanent Israeli presence there; today, 168,000 Israelis live in ten principal settlement neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, a number approximately equal to the Palestinian population.

Although housing construction for Israeli buyers has enjoyed broad political support within Israel, government officials have recently revealed that for twenty years Israel has enforced a strict quota on Palestinian construction in Jerusalem for the purpose of maintaining the city's percentage of Palestinian residents at around 26 percent. The government's ministerial committee on Jerusalem explicitly adopted this limitation in 1973.

Since 1967, only 12 percent of all new construction in the city has taken place for Palestinians in the Arab sector. During the 1977-1983 period, for example, 90 percent of all construction was for Israelis. The figure translates into annual construction of 2,170 apartments for Israelis and only 230 for Palestinians. Housing construction for Israelis in East Jerusalem has been critical to the overall growth of the city. The 168,000 Israelis who live in this area today comprise a startling 76 percent of the total increase in Jerusalem's Jewish population since 1967.

Israeli Majority Increases
Government restrictions on Palestinian housing construction, and the complementary boom in Israeli construction that has seen more than 40,000 apartment units built in East Jerusalem settlement communities, have ensured that Palestinians today comprise no greater share of the city's population than they did in 1967.

Israeli planning programs envision an additional 46,300 housing units for the entire city, more than 10,000 of which are to be built on the 3,500 acres of Israeli territory added to West Jerusalem in May last year. An additional 17,710 units will be located in East Jerusalem settlement communities. The Arab sector has a capacity of 15,210 additional units for its Palestinian residents.

In contrast to extensive planning and infrastructure preparation for the Israeli sector, plans for Arab housing construction have been curtailed for years. In view of this fact, government planners expect that in coming years the Israeli majority in East Jerusalem will increase at a relatively faster rate than in the past.

During a visit to the United States in October 1993, Minister of Housing Benjamin ben Eliezer announced construction of 13,000 additional housing units, principally in the East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Har Homa, Ramot, Gilo, and Pisgat Ze'ev.

"I refuse to accept the concept of East Jerusalem," explained ben Eliezer. "There is just one Jerusalem. My plans . . . are meant to strengthen Jerusalem and answer its needs. . . . I definitely plan to create the conditions to build about 13,000 units within Jerusalem in the near future."

Palestinians naturally oppose Israel's determined effort to transform the geography and the character of the city.

"These are the blackest of days for Jerusalem," said Khalil Tufakji, a Jerusalem geographer who advises the PLO negotiating team. "In two years it will all be over."