Yishai shelves Jerusalem plan over 'too much' zoning for Arabs

Interior Minister Eli Yishai has instructed ministry employees to nix a master plan for Jerusalem on the grounds that it allocates too much territory for Palestinian construction. In recent days Yishai instructed Ruth Yosef, tapped as the ministry's new supervisor for Jerusalem, to shelve the program - the fruit of several years of labor by dozens of architects.

The master plan was intended to outline the city's development over the next few decades and to remedy a situation in which, since 1959, the capital has not been developed according to a comprehensive agenda.

A spokesman for Yishai, the Shas party chairman, said in response, "The program does not require the minister's approval, but he is currently learning about it, as he is still a new minister. In any case, the committee has the authority to decide whether or not to wait until the end of the minister's examination, as it has in the past."

The plan emphasizes, among other things, increased building in the eastern part of the city. It calls for the construction of 13,500 more housing units for the city's Palestinian population, particularly in the neighborhoods of A-Tur, Beit Hanina, Shoafat and Jabal Mukkaber, and for developing those neighborhoods' infrastructure.

The outline was submitted to an Interior Ministry committee for approval, but city officials discovered this week that Yishai had ordered that the program not be authorized, lest significant portions of the eastern city areas be designated for Palestinian construction. Instead, the interior minister threw his support behind another program, drafted in 2000, which set aside less territory for new construction in Palestinian neighborhoods.

City officials expressed frustration Wednesday at Yishai's decision. They said the Interior Ministry also recently canceled a specific program allowing the construction of a new Arab neighborhood along the city's southern outskirts, in an area known as the "Gates of Bethlehem."

Palestinian residents of Jerusalem said even this relatively generous program is highly problematic in terms of their housing needs. "The plan revolves on two axes," said attorney Sami Arshid. "One is the complete disconnection of the Old City from the city's Palestinian sphere, and the other is diluting the concentration of [the Palestinian] population in the city center while allowing building at the northern and southern fringes of East Jerusalem."

Meir Margalit, a city council member representing the Meretz faction, said Yishai "doesn't understand that the government must now allow normal life in East Jerusalem."

Haaretz reported earlier this week that ministry employees had been instructed to assist the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank in any way possible - including annexing built-up areas to fall under the jurisdiction of larger communities in the major settlement blocs - and aiding settlements financially.

Yishai is seeking to calculate city limits as liberally as possible, so that construction can eventually take place on the additional square kilometers to accommodate the "natural growth" of settlement populations.

Meanwhile, city employees Wednesday distributed demolition orders for three homes in the al-Bustan area of Silwan, a village adjacent to the Old City. All of the neighborhood's homes - 90 in all - are slated for demolition; the orders were issued despite ongoing negotiations between residents and the municipality.