Israel announced today that the government had approved construction of about 3000 new homes in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Givat Hamatos. Almost immediately, the media began describing these homes as "illegal Israeli settlements". It's truly amazing.
Here are a few facts
1. 1000 of the homes are in the Arab section of this neighborhood, and area called Beit Safafa. Two thousand are in a new section that will be called Givat Hamatos. These will likely be inhabited by Jews.
2. The houses are in Jerusalem and they literally abut the Green Line. That's the line where the border between Israeli and Jordanian territory was from 1949 to 1967. Today, there is nothing left of that border. There are no landmarks that tell one where it was.
3. The houses are located between 1 and 2 miles from the Israeli parliament building and the buildings housing the main Israeli government agencies.
4. In the last 50 years, the population of Jerusalem has increased greatly. There are around 1.3 million people in the metro area with just under 900,000 within the city limits. This is more than twice the population of 50 years ago. The population is growing at close to 3% per year. This population growth has made the need for new housing extremely great.
These facts are important to keep in mind. Givat Hamatos is not some small settlement on a barren hill top in the middle of the West Bank. It's just another new neighborhood in the heart of the growing city of Jerusalem. It's not some sort of land grab; no residents are being moved to make way for these houses.
The Palestinians have already denounced the new houses as "another attack on a two state solution". That's pretty funny. The Palestinians won't accept a two state solution, but they still pay lip service to it so as to criticize the Israelis. President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority would rather raise bogus charges against these homes than to celebrate the huge new number of homes for Palestinian Arabs which are included in the new construction. It's just sad.
Here are a few facts
1. 1000 of the homes are in the Arab section of this neighborhood, and area called Beit Safafa. Two thousand are in a new section that will be called Givat Hamatos. These will likely be inhabited by Jews.
2. The houses are in Jerusalem and they literally abut the Green Line. That's the line where the border between Israeli and Jordanian territory was from 1949 to 1967. Today, there is nothing left of that border. There are no landmarks that tell one where it was.
3. The houses are located between 1 and 2 miles from the Israeli parliament building and the buildings housing the main Israeli government agencies.
4. In the last 50 years, the population of Jerusalem has increased greatly. There are around 1.3 million people in the metro area with just under 900,000 within the city limits. This is more than twice the population of 50 years ago. The population is growing at close to 3% per year. This population growth has made the need for new housing extremely great.
These facts are important to keep in mind. Givat Hamatos is not some small settlement on a barren hill top in the middle of the West Bank. It's just another new neighborhood in the heart of the growing city of Jerusalem. It's not some sort of land grab; no residents are being moved to make way for these houses.
The Palestinians have already denounced the new houses as "another attack on a two state solution". That's pretty funny. The Palestinians won't accept a two state solution, but they still pay lip service to it so as to criticize the Israelis. President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority would rather raise bogus charges against these homes than to celebrate the huge new number of homes for Palestinian Arabs which are included in the new construction. It's just sad.
No comments:
Post a Comment