The World Likud Movement held a cornerstone-laying ceremony yesterday for the expansion of the neighbourhood of Nof Zion, despite - or possibly because of - American pressure against building in East Jerusalem. The Jewish settlement is in the middle of the Arab village of Jabal Mukkaber. Meanwhile, the Jerusalem municipality razed two Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem yesterday.
The plan is to add 105 new apartments to the 90 already in Nof Zion. Most of the existing apartments are occupied. The neighbourhood is considered "prestigious," but the developers ran into trouble a few years ago after they failed to sell the apartments to Jews from overseas. The developers then changed their marketing strategy to targeting the local ‘national-religious’ market and the apartments began selling quickly. The World Likud's announcement of the ceremony said the neighbourhood was ‘near’ Jabal Mukkaber, "bounded by terraces and with olive trees and grapevines." In fact, however, Nof Zion is in the middle of the village, near Palestinian homes. A group of American Jews interested in buying apartments in Nof Zion attended yesterday's ceremony.
Addressing the ceremony, Danny Danon of the right-wing Likud party said that Jerusalem will never be a part of negotiations with the Palestinians. He called Barack Obama "naive" and said the U.S. president ‘still does not seem to understand who are the good guys and who are the bad guys in the conflict’.
Meanwhile, the Jerusalem municipality razed two Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, one in Isawiyah and one in Silwan. In both cases, local residents battled with the police. In Isawiyah villagers tried to block the entrance to the village with cars, while in Silwan local residents threw rocks at police officers after the house was destroyed.
Adapted from the article "Israel building Jewish homes with one hand, destroying Arab homes with the other",
written by journalist Nir Hasson and published in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz on Nov. 19, 2009.
See article on line at: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1129190.html
Distributed by PAJU (Palestinians and Jewish Unity)
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