Anger and alarm at Israeli plans to build in east Jerusalem

Just across the Israeli concrete separation wall from Bethlehem, construction cranes loom over the blocky stone buildings of Har Homa, one of two big settlements at the entrance to east Jerusalem. The development hugs what used to be a wooded hillside where Palestinians from the city went for weekend picnics and walks.

Last week, Israel said it would push ahead with plans to expand Har Homa and Ramat Shlomo, another Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem, by more than 1,000 homes.

The announcement angered Palestinians and alarmed Israel’s western allies, who say it represents further Israeli expansion in Arab east Jerusalem, the putative Palestinian capital if peace talks – which collapsed in April in part because of disagreements about the settlements — are ever revived.

Open hilltops

Last month the US, the EU, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon and the Palestinians condemned Israel’s approval of plans to build 2,610 settler homes at Givat Hamatos, one of the last open hilltops separating Jerusalem from Bethlehem. If built, it would sever the future Palestinian capital from one of the West Bank’s biggest cities, they warned.

To his critics, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s push has a clear, if unspoken, aim: to undermine the two-state solution by building settlements in east Jerusalem that diminish the city’s viability as a future capital of an independent Palestine.

Palestinians and leftwing Israelis are also drawing attention to land to the south of Bethlehem, where a settlement called Efrat wants to expand its population.

Palestinians there say that settlers living in the area have been harassing them – beating farmers, cutting olive trees, poisoning crops and setting dogs on them – as they wait for an Israeli court case to be settled that would allow them to stake a more permanent claim.

Palestinian city

“Bethlehem is a Palestinian city that has nowhere to develop,” says Lior Amihai of Peace Now, a leftwing Israeli non-governmental organisation. “It is blocked from the north by the separation barrier and the Jewish neighbourhoods of south Jerusalem; it is blocked from the west by the separation barrier and the Gush Etzion settlements, and from the south it is blocked by Efrat, which intends to expand more.”

Illegal settlements

Some 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, among 2.4 million Palestinians. The

World Court

says settlements Israel has built there are illegal, a view Israel disputes.

On Monday an Israeli committee approved 500 new apartments in Ramat Shlomo. — (Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2014, Reuters)