The Planning and Building Committee of the Jerusalem Municipality is expected to approve building permits for 176 housing units for Jews in the Nof Tzion (Jabel Mukaber) neighborhood in the eastern part of the city next Sunday, Israel’s Channel 1 News reported Wednesday night.
Nof Zion is an apartment complex built on privately owned land bought by an Israeli developer Rahamim Levy in the 1970s. The new neighborhood was originally intended to be marketed as luxury apartments to Diaspora Jews, since the apartments overlook the Temple Mount. But, at the time, the Digal company which built the housing development was unable to market it due to its proximity to Arab homes.
Israel’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal from local Arab residents who had claimed some of the land belonged to them. Upon completion, the neighborhood will boast 480 apartments.
Ha’aretz noted Thursday that the approval of the new Jewish housing units is expected to take place while Netanyahu makes his way to a 10-day state visit to Latin America, followed by his speech to the UN General Assembly in New York – at which point, on the sidelines of the General Assembly meeting, he will meet President Donald Trump to discuss the Administration’s peace initiative.
Another anti-Zionist newspaper, Jerusalem’s al-Ayyam, called on Jerusalem Arabs to perform Friday noon prayer in front of a home in another eastern Jerusalem neighborhood, Shmon HaTztadik (Sheikh Jarrah), from which a family of Arab squatters was evicted this week, having invaded the home when the Jordanian Legion expelled its Jewish owners in 1948.
According to Peace Now, the application for a building permit was submitted by a company named Shemini, which is owned by several foreign companies registered in Australia, the Cayman Islands and the US. Peace Now estimates that Jewish-Australian technology innovator, real estate investor, philanthropist, and one of the founders of Skype, Kevin Bermeister is behind Shemini, of which Israeli businessman Rami Levy of the discount supermarket chain fame holds 15%.
Peace Now lamented that “building a large settlement in the heart of a Palestinian neighborhood would be a severe blow to Jerusalem and a chance for a two-state solution.”
One can hope.
The group noted that “it seems that the government has opened all the dams and allowed a frenzy of settlement projects in the heart of the Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem.” However, they pointed out, “it turns out that Israelis are not interested in buying houses in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods and the only ones willing to live there are those motivated by ideological motives. There is no economic or real estate interest in this, but only a political attempt to prevent a compromise in Jerusalem.”
Peace Now did not elaborate on why exactly many Israelis would be afraid to live next door to Arab neighbors, especially when peace could be around the corner.