Judaization of Jerusalem - Defining Judaization: Means and Effects in Jerusalem - Settlements and House Demolitions

Settlements and House Demolitions

Over roughly three decades, from 1967 to 1995, of 76,151 housing units built in Jerusalem, 64,867 (88%) were allocated for Jewish residents with 59% of these units built in East Jerusalem as new Jewish neighbourhoods.

Yiftachel writes that by 2001, Judaization in Jerusalem had entailed the incorporation of 170 square kilometers (66 sq mi) of surrounding land into the city's boundaries and the construction of 8 settlements in East Jerusalem housing a total of 206,000 Jewish settlers. In an essay he co-authored with Haim Yaacobi, they write that, "Israel would like the Palestinian residents of Jerusalem to see Judaization as 'inevitable', a fact to be accepted passively as part of the modern development of the metropolis."

Plans are underway to construct a new Israeli settlement in the last piece of open land linking East Jerusalem to the West Bank that will house about 45,000 residents on a land area larger than Tel Aviv, the second-largest Israeli city. According to Alghad, a Jordanian newspaper, the Israeli government elected in 2009 is soliciting tenders for the biggest settlement plans in West Bank. These plans have been described by the Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti as, "an announcement against peace and against the Palestinian state and it means the Israeli government is not a partner for peace." This settlement is considered to by Palestinians as one method by which to Judaize the city.

In 1981, the Supreme Court of Israel ruled that non-Jews could not buy property in the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem so as to "preserve the homogeneity" of the Jewish Quarter. On the other hand, no law prohibits Jews from buying property or living in East Jerusalem. The efforts of fundamentalist Jewish groups who enjoyed government backing in attempts to take over Palestinian homes in the Muslim and Christian Quarters of the Old City between 1993 and 2000 are cited by Rubenberg as one example of the Judaization of Jerusalem. Meron Benvenisti writes that these groups succeeding in taking over several buildings, "but only after receiving massive assistance from the government to, among other things, finance an extensive system of armed guards to protect them day and night, and hire armed guards for their children anytime they go out into the streets."

Rubenberg also cites settlement construction as an example of the Judaization of Jerusalem, citing in particular the construction of bypass roads that connect Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem with those in the West Bank so as to create a newly expanded Jerusalem metropolis integrally linked with Israel proper. Jeff Halper, an anthropologist and director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), describes the Judaization of the city as one of the effects of settlement growth and house demolitions in East Jerusalem, describing it as being aimed at "eliminat the idea that there is an East Jerusalem, to create one unified, Jewish Jerusalem." In March 2009, defending its planned demolitions against Palestinian houses in the Bustan area of Silwan that would leave 1,500 people homeless, Jerusalem authorities said the houses were built illegally, without zoning and construction permits. Palestinians and human rights organisations countered that "Israel makes it almost impossible for Palestinians to get the requisite permits, as a part of the policy to Judaise the eastern part of the city."