Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
A7 News
Jerusalem’s revised master plan favors Arab housing, may lead to eliminating a Jewish majority in the capital, as well as dividing the city, according to a study by former journalist Nadav Shragai.
He quoted census statistics showing that in the past 40 years, the population growth of Arabs in the capital was nearly double that of Jews. Furthermore, Arabs make up 60 percent of the population in all the areas restored to the city. In a report for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), the recently-retired writer for Haaretz said that the municipality’s revised “master plan” actually provides more housing for Arabs than the projected need, while leaving Jews with fewer apartments and homes than the estimated demand.
The master plan, unveiled in 2008, was vastly altered without involving the local planning commission and still is being debated. Its ramifications spell trouble for the long-standing policy of a Jewish majority in Jerusalem, according to Shragai’s research.
Planners for decades have projected a 70 percent majority of Jews in Jerusalem, but changing demographics have led to a change in numbers towards a 60-40 ratio of Jews to Arabs. Shragai noted that immediately after the 1967 Six Day War when eastern Jerusalem was restored to Israel, founding father David Ben-Gurion stated, “We must bring Jews to eastern Jerusalem at any cost. We must settle tens of thousands of Jews in a brief time. Jews will agree to settle in eastern Jerusalem even in shacks. We cannot await the construction of orderly neighborhoods. The essential thing is that Jews will be there.”
The changes in the master plan “jeopardized even the ‘modest’ demographic objective set for the year 2020 of 60 percent Jews and 40 percent Arabs,” the research report stated.
The revised plan provides for the “addition of housing areas for the Arab population from areas that were previously designated to remain green and open areas, while at the same time reducing housing areas for the Jewish population,” Shragai wrote.
He also pointed out that the absence of land registration arrangements for eastern Jerusalem will have a severe negative influence on planning and construction.
The estimated planned inventory of housing for the Arab population under the master plan meets requirements until 2030, while the inventory for Jews will not be enough even for 2020, Shragai wrote. His conclusion was based on previous experience that only a third of the inventory of approved building plans are actually built.
Shragai reasoned that there will be even less actual housing for Jews because the plans incorrectly assume that land can be expropriated for building in the neighborhoods of Gilo, Ramot, Har Homa and Pisgat Ze’ev. “Given the current political and diplomatic reality, the plausibility that the state will use this planned inventory and will resume expropriating land, as it did in the past) is virtually nil,” according to the researcher.
He also warned against that the temporary decision to allow housing in many green areas that separate Arab sections within the city from those that are outside the municipal boundaries. The plan will reinforce the Palestinian Authority demand to recognize eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria as a single political entity, Shragai explained.
“In other words, such contiguity can reinforce the Palestinian claim in favor of partitioning the city and turning eastern Jerusalem into the capital of a Palestinian state, if and when it is established,” he added.
The master plan’s housing proposals also endanger the connection between Jerusalem and the city of Maaleh Adumim (pictured), located several miles to the east, he concluded.
Shragai also said that the lack of registration arrangements is detrimental and that human rights groups, Jerusalem Arabs and Jews wanting to live in the entire city all agree on the need for it.
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