In the face of these realities, Netanyahu presents his own “facts” and chastises the US administration for not doing its homework. He says that Givat Hamatos, like the Silwan neighborhood abutting the Old City walls, is an inseparable part of unified Jerusalem and Israel’s sovereign territory.
The fact is that Israel is the only country that recognizes the annexation to Jerusalem of 70 square kilometers (27 square miles) of West Bank land captured in June of 1967 and the legality of the Jewish neighborhoods built across the Green Line. Netanyahu also claims, “Arabs in Jerusalem freely buy apartments, and nobody says that is forbidden.” In a meeting with journalists in his New York hotel, the prime minister added, “There must not be discrimination — not of Jews and not of Arabs.”
In an interview with Fusion’s Jorge Ramos, Netanyahu said, “If, in a certain neighborhood in the United States or in Mexico or anywhere else, you would tell a Jew that he couldn’t buy an apartment, there would be an uproar.”
It seems hard to believe that the prime minister of Israel lies knowingly, so it must be that Netanyahu hasn’t studied all the facts. Scandalously, a Jew living in the United States or in Mexico, who has never visited Israel, is entitled to buy a house in the Old City of Jerusalem or in the Jewish Quarter in Hebron. On the other hand, a Palestinian native of Jerusalem is not entitled to buy an apartment in the Har Homah neighborhood and cannot get a title deed to an apartment in Givat Hamatos.
In complete contradiction to the prime minister’s claim, not only is land in west Jerusalem out of bounds for Arab residents of East Jerusalem (only several hundred Palestinians have been granted Israeli citizenship), the 280,000 Palestinians there have no access to “national lands” even in areas that were under Jordanian control until 1967 and expropriated to build Israeli neighborhoods on some 35% of the area of East Jerusalem. The State of Israel sells real estate solely to Jews (93% of the land in Israel is “national land”). Article 19 of the Israel Land Administration’s land lease contract, which came into force on Sept. 1, 2013, clearly states that a foreign national cannot lease (not to mention gain title) national lands unless he obtains permission by virtue of his entitlement to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return.
And after all is said and done, and even as the world continues to wag its finger at Israel, it’s business as usual for the settlers as they make their way with heads held high from Har Homah to Givat Hamatos, from Sheikh Jarrah to Silwan.
The prime minister's office did not respond to Al-Monitor's query concerning the alleged contradiction between the prime minister's claim that Jews and Arabs are equality entitled to purchase apartments in Jerusalem and the Israel Land Administration's lease contract.
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/10/israeli-arabs-apartments-east-west-jerusalem-national-lands.html#ixzz3FRG9fDoO
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