The Ministerial Expropriations Committee, headed by Finance Minister Yigal Hurwitz, signed on order last night expropriating some 1000 acres of land in last Jerusalem. The decision followed a proposal by Housing Minister David Levy at last Sunday’s Cabinet meeting. The Cabinet ordered Levy to come back with more specific proposals and his immediate proposal was referred to the ministerial committee. The expropriations order last night presented the local land owners with a fait accompli.
The land involved, between the existing French Hill and the Neve Yoacov neighborhoods, is intended for the construction of some 10,000 new housing units for Jews on the eastern borders of Jerusalem. Levy had told the Cabinet that unless the land was expropriated the Arab inhabitants of the area would create facts by building in between the two Jewish neighborhoods.
About 30 percent of the land is owned by Jews, 68 percent belongs to non-Jews, and two percent is State-owned. However, most of the land in question is free of any building. Landowners, several hundred in number, can appeal against the expropriation order to courts, but under Israeli law the Finance Minister can justify, any expropriation merely by claiming that it is necessary for the “benefit of the public.”
KOLLEK QUESTIONS WISDOM OF MOVE
Meanwhile, Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek has so far been the only political figures to publicly question the wisdom of expropriating the land. He said that without available resources for building on the expropriated land, the order would be politically damaging.
Kollek did not object to the expropriation in principle, but said it should have taken place years ago. Its implementation, he noted, at this moment would unnecessarily aggravate the Arabs, unnecessarily because he doubted the chances for any massive construction projects on the expropriated land.
The Jerusalem City Engineer’s Office had worked for years on a plan to link the Neve Yaocav neighborhood in north East Jerusalem with the French Hill which is further down south along the Jerusalem-Ramallah Road. But implementation of the plan needed massive investments which are nowhere in sight, Kollek said. Except for Kollek’s Reaction, the expropriation decision hardly caused any public reaction.
(In Washington, State Department spokesman Hodding Carter said that the U.S. “deplores the decision” to expropriate the 1000 acres of land “in occupied territories. Our position has consistently been that the future of the occupied areas must be settled in the course of the negotiations for a comprehensive peace. It is of the utmost importance to avoid any unilateral action which undermines these delicate negotiations or prejudges their outcome.”)
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