Israeli Housing Minister to permit 1460 new housing units in East Jerusalem settlements

In another blatant violation of the promise made in Annapolis in September 2007 by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to halt settlement construction, the Israeli Housing Minister Ze'ev Boim announced Friday that he will be issuing permits for 1,460 new housing units in three Israeli settlements built on Palestinian land in East Jerusalem.


Construction in the untra-Orthodox Beitar Ilit settlement

The announcement came just days before the Israeli Prime Minister plans to visit Washington to report on the progress of the peace process. After the so-called 'Annapolis Summit', which was a one-day meeting between Israeli and Palestinian factions in Annapolis, MD in the US, Ehud Olmert announced that all new construction in Israeli settlements must be approved by both himself and the Defense Minister. But despite that promise, construction has continued unabated in a number of West Bank settlements.

Housing Minister Ze'ev Boim said in an interview with the Kol Hai radio station on Friday that the permits for the 1,460 new units were meant as a “gift to the city [of Jerusalem] on the 41st anniversary of its emancipation." This is a reference to the creation of the state of Israel on Palestinian land in 1947, and the subsequent disenfranchisement of the hundreds of thousands of indigenous Palestinians living on the land. imemc