Expansion Push Comes Up Empty Near Jerusalem
The real estate ads are seductive. Prestigious! Breathtaking views! Spacious, five bedrooms, with balcony! No monthly mortgage!
But the publicity in Israeli newspapers fails to mention one thing: location, location, location.
Har Homa, the “up-and-coming new suburb of Jerusalem,” is under construction on disputed land that has long been a politically charged symbol of the battle to control this city claimed by Israel and the Palestinians. Israeli officials just released plans for an additional 3,000 apartments, and the first homeowners are planning to move in this summer.
Palestinian militants have already threatened to make Har Homa a target, like the nearby neighborhood of Gilo on Jerusalem’s southern outskirts and Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
The fast-paced development of Har Homa and the expansion of several settlements have emerged as stark evidence of the new Israeli government’s determination to stake a nonnegotiable claim on territory that Palestinians want for their future sovereign state.
Over cries of outrage from the Palestinians, and pointed criticism from Washington, right-wing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has declared that none of the Jewish settlements--controversial by any standard and considered illegal by the world community--will be dismantled. He has also vowed that he will not make the sharing of any portion of Jerusalem part of his agenda.
The positions represent a reversal of two stances of Sharon’s predecessor, and critics say they are a huge obstacle to any resumption of peace talks, should that day ever come.
The government says the expansions are necessary because of “natural growth.” This might come as a surprise to Housing Ministry statisticians who report high vacancy rates in several settlements--not to mention beleaguered real estate agents desperately trying to pitch apartments in disputed communities.
One such agent is Sari Cidor, who has become something akin to the Maytag repairman of land development. Last year, prospective buyers were knocking down her door for the chance to buy a place in Har Homa. Today, seven months after a deadly Palestinian uprising erupted, days go by without a nibble.
“A year ago, people saw great potential,” she said. “Now the problem is the general situation in the country. Everything is uncertain and unknown.”
The Pluses of Life on the Hilltop
Touring Har Homa the other day, Cidor pointed to what she regards as the pluses of life on the hilltop four miles, as the crow flies, south of downtown Jerusalem. Good air. Good views. Best of all, a good deal. Prices are cheap by local standards. Eager to make a sale, Cidor’s company has slashed by nearly 50% the interest rate it will charge on mortgage loans to buyers.
“First of all, you are in Jerusalem. There are no other properties in Jerusalem where you can get this size of apartment for this price,” she said. She showed a three-bedroom first-floor flat, still under construction, with an asking price of $165,000, half or two-thirds the price in central Jerusalem. It looks out on the Palestinian-ruled city of Bethlehem, about a mile to the south. Other Arab villages, Sur Bahur and Um Tuba, abut Har Homa to the north and east.
And what about security? Nearby Gilo has come under repeated gunfire attacks from Palestinian areas.
“I can’t answer that,” Cidor said. “It’s your decision, whether you want to live with it or not. If someone comes here, they know that Bethlehem is over there.”
Rivka Matitya is an enthusiastic Har Homa homeowner. She and her husband bought a four-bedroom-plus-den apartment last year and expect to move in this fall with their three small children. She said the idea of sallying forth to form a new community excites her, and she likes Har Homa’s proximity to Jerusalem shopping and cultural attractions. She expects the government to protect Har Homa, if it is attacked, the way Gilo has been defended.
Gunfire on Gilo is usually met with Israeli tank fire and the shelling of buildings in Bethlehem or nearby Beit Jala.
“A person should feel free to live in your home and walk the streets,” said Matitya, a 35-year-old native of New Jersey. “Is Har Homa more dangerous than somewhere else? It’s a matter of time. If it’s dangerous to live in Har Homa, it will be dangerous to live in Katamon and in Rehavia,” she added, naming old Jerusalem neighborhoods.
Israelis don’t consider Har Homa a settlement; it is being built on land that Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East War and then annexed. Israel later expanded Jerusalem’s borders in an attempt to include Har Homa. Before 1967, Har Homa, which is known to Arabs as Jabal Abu Ghneim, was a part of Bethlehem.
In 1997, Israel’s announcement that it would build on the Har Homa hilltop brought peace negotiations to a screeching halt. Today, with the peace process dead and a veritable war raging, Israel is proceeding apace. A forest of pine trees just two years ago, Har Homa is abuzz with construction.
Along with Har Homa, Sharon’s government is expanding towns that no one disputes are settlements.
Sharon’s housing minister, Natan Sharansky, last month announced the auction of West Bank land for 700 additional apartments in Maale Adumim, the largest settlement, just east of Jerusalem, and Alfei Menashe, near the West Bank town of Kalkilya. Five thousand more apartments are reportedly being planned for the Gush Etzion settlements south of Bethlehem.
Sharansky said the violence of the last months had demonstrated how important it is to “strengthen” the presence of Jews in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Others saw the timing as a deliberate attempt to scuttle tentative talks with the Palestinians, who are demanding, above all else, a freeze on settlement expansion as a condition of halting the intifada.
Palestinians regard settlements as the greatest affront to their national aspirations. About 145 settlements, with about 200,000 residents, are scattered among 3 million Palestinians, chopping up territory that the Palestinians claim.
Sharansky’s announcement also drew unusually tough criticism from the United States, with the State Department denouncing it as a dangerous provocation that inflamed an already volatile atmosphere.
Sharon, a 73-year-old warrior-turned-politician, has long been one of Israel’s most fervent champions of settlement building, which he considers an ideological and strategic imperative to safeguard Israeli security and block Palestinian territorial contiguity.
“You know, it’s not by accident that the settlements are located where they are,” Sharon told the Haaretz newspaper. “I see no reason for evacuating any settlements.”
Critics Say Settlements Erode Zionist Dream
But for many Palestinians, settlements are the core issue behind the uprising. Palestinian gunmen have most consistently targeted settlements, and many of the estimated 70 Israeli Jews slain in the violence have been settlers.
Settlers argue that their presence in the West Bank and Gaza realizes the biblical legacy of God’s bestowal of the Land of Israel on the Jews. But critics, including many on the Israeli left, argue that the expansion of settlements in fact erodes the Zionist dream. It further complicates an eventual separation between Israelis and Palestinians; in the alternative, a single state for both peoples, Jews would eventually lose the demographic war and find themselves outnumbered by Arabs, these critics argue.
Under fire, Sharon’s government said it will not create new settlements but merely expand existing ones to accommodate the “natural growth.” The population growth rate of the settlements is nearly 8.6%--more than 60% higher than among non-settler Israelis--and includes births as well as the influx of people lured by attractive government incentive packages, cheap subsidized housing or ideological causes.
Even with that growth rate, given the many apartments that sit empty plus those under construction, no new building is needed for at least another year, argues Peace Now, an Israeli organization that opposes and monitors settlements.
According to Sharansky’s Housing Ministry, nearly 72% of new apartments that have gone up for sale since 1994 in Maale Adumim have been sold, while only about 10% of those for sale in another settlement, Givat Zeev, just north of Jerusalem, have been sold. In Har Homa, about 40% have been sold.
