On March 1, 2011, the “Licensing Committee” at the Israeli Municipality of Jerusalem issued building permits for the construction of 14 Illegal housing units in the former Israeli police headquarter in Ras Al-‘Amoud neighborhood in the Eastern part of Jerusalem city. The new housing units are the first step to build the so called “Maaleh David Illegal settlement” or ‘Ma’alot David’ in Ras Al Amoud neighborhood.
The story of the aforementioned settlement goes back to April 2008, when a group of Jewish settlers from ‘Redeeming Jerusalem’ Committee” coercively took residency in the former building of the Police Station in Ras Al ‘Amoud neighborhood after the Israeli police vacated the building and moved into the new Police headquarter in the E1 area in Ma’aleh Adumim settlement bloc. The neighborhood includes the building of 110 housing units over 10 dunums of vacated land in addition to 6 Israeli societies and public organizations. The site of the old police station will be the nucleus of Ma’aleh David settlement where the 14 housing units will be built soon.
The Police Station
On the 14th of March 2006, Israel began the construction of what is known today as the West Bank’s key Israeli police headquarter in the E1 area on 14 dunums land, with a total cost of $10 million. The Israeli daily Newspaper ‘Haaretz’ reported on April 26th, 2006 the details of the exchange deal between the right-wing association ‘Bukharan Community Committee’ and the Israel Police (represented by the national police commissioner Moshe Karadi) which was signed in July 2005. The agreement stipulated that the Committee will build the new West Bank (Judea and Samaria) District Police building in the E1 corridor between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim. In return the Committee will receive the current police building, located in the heart of East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras Al-‘Amud. This building was established on a piece of land that was expropriated for public needs. According to another agreement between the Bukharan Committee and the Israel Land Administration, ‘the land shall stop serving the needs of the public’ and will therefore be available for residential use. By doing that, the committee will incorporate the ex-police building to the Israeli Settlement ‘Ma`aleh David’ in Ras al Amud neighborhood and will therefore expand the territorial control of the settlement. See Map 1 & Map 2:
Map 1: Ma’aleh David Settlement on Ras Al-‘Amoud Neighborhood
Map 2: the E1 area and the Police Station near Ma’aleh Adumim Settlement
The E1 Plan
The master plan of Ma’aleh Adumim settlement shows that the settlement area will reach 53,000 dunums, which is actually larger than Tel Aviv or Beersheba cities. Currently the city covers around 7,000 dunums.
The master of the E1 plan has an area of 12,000 dunums, in the area between Ma’aleh Adumim settlement and the East Jerusalem Palestinian communities of Abu Dis, Al ‘Ezariya, Al ‘Isawiya, ‘Anata, At Tur and Az ‘Ayyem. The E1 plan aims at physically connecting the Ma’ale Adumim settlement bloc with the Israeli settlements in the eastern part of Jerusalem which was occupied in 1967, thus creating a barrier that will prevent the Palestinian development east of the city.
The E1 plan incorporates the building of 3,500 housing units, a police station, a cemetery, a dumping site, a Tourist Park and public areas. In case of the implementation of the E1 plan, the population in Ma’aleh Adumim is projected to exceed 60,000 settlers (Benny Kashreil the Mayor of Ma`ali Adumim).
Legal & International Status
The Israeli right-wing government headed by Benyamin Netanyahu is moving steadily towards achieving its political and ideological purposes to declare illegally and unilaterally, the city of Jerusalem including its eastern part, as the unified, eternal, undivided capital of the Jewish State of Israel and have total sovereignty over the Palestinian people and their lands.
On the ground, a series of systematic Israeli steps are taking place to undermine the status of the Palestinians in the eastern part of the city, by restraining all forms of development for the Palestinian neighborhoods in the city, splitting the city from the West Bank mainly through the construction of the Israeli Segregation Wall; In addition to building new Illegal Israeli settlements and neighborhoods and adopting more discrimination rules and policies to push Palestinian Jerusalemites to voluntary leave their city to keep Jewish dominance over the western and eastern part of the city.
The building of the Israeli settlements and their outposts in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, is Illegal and constitute a grave breach of the International law rules and conventions.
Article XXXI of the 1995 Oslo agreement provides that: Israelis forbidden from building or planning to any project or settlements or any colonial expansion or any plan that lead to change the status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The article provides “Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations”.
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Furthermore the Forth Geneva Convention also states in Article 49 that “The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own population into the territories it occupies.
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In May 2001, the head of the International Red Cross delegation to Israel and the Occupied Territories said that settlements are ‘equal in principle to war crimes’. (Note: ‘The transfer, the installation of population of the occupying power into the occupied territories is considered as an illegal move and qualified as a ‘grave breach.’ It’s a grave breach, formally speaking, but grave breaches are equal in principle to war crimes’, Rene Kosirnik, head of the ICRC delegation to Israel and the OPT, press conference 17 May 2001.)
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Also ,the existence of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and their expansions are Illegal and contradicts with the international law rules, United Nations Security Council Resolutions such as 237 (1967), 271 (1969), 446 (1979), 452 (1979) ,465 (1980.
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Moreover, Resolution 446 March 22, 1979 calls on Israel to rescind its previous measures and to desist from taking any action which would result in changing the legal status and geographical nature and materially affecting the demographic composition of the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem and, in particular, not to transfer parts of its own civilian population into the occupied Arab territories’
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The resolution 452 of the 1979 “calls upon the Government and people of Israel to cease, on an urgent basis, the establishment, construction and planning of settlements in the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem
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