Summary
A Jewish settlement inside Jerusalem’s expanded municipal borders, established on Jabal Abu Ghneim (Mount Abu Ghneim), land belonging to Palestinian families from Bethlehem and neighbouring Beit Sahour: expropriated in 1991 under a British land law of 1943 for “public use” — a public from which the land’s owners are excluded — and planned for thousands of housing units housing up to 30,000 Jewish residents, off-limits to Palestinians (Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, PDF p.177-179).
Details
- Har Homa is one of twelve settlements inside the expanded municipal borders of Jerusalem, with a combined population approaching a quarter of a million; most are wedged into or between existing Palestinian neighbourhoods (PDF p.177).
- The settlement was initiated in 1991, close to the beginning of the peace process launched at the Madrid conference that year, on land just north of Bethlehem that once served as an obvious land reserve for the future growth of Bethlehem and Beit Sahour — precisely the sort of area, Arab land without Arabs, that Israeli planners were looking for as they expanded Jerusalem’s borders after 1967 (PDF p.177-178).
- For more than two decades after its incorporation into Jerusalem the land was left as a classified Green Area: Palestinians were not allowed to use it, and Israelis had not yet established plans for it (PDF p.178).
- In 1991 the minister of finance ordered its expropriation under a provision of a British land law of 1943 allowing expropriation of private property for “public use”; since neither Israeli Palestinians nor Palestinians from the occupied territories, including the original owners, are counted as part of the “public”, “public use” here actually means Jewish settlement (PDF p.178).
- The planning scheme calls for thousands of housing units as well as schools, shops, hotels and tourist attractions; the housing units are off-limits to Palestinians but will eventually house up to 30,000 Jewish residents (PDF p.178-179).
- Tehilla, an organisation that helps new Jewish immigrants find homes, markets it in the language of banal domesticity: “Har Homa is Jerusalem’s fastest growing community since ‘opening’ in January 2002”; “The bottom line—Har Homa is a warm, affordable community right at Jerusalem’s doorstep.” Nothing in such material shows it is a colony established in violation of international law on expropriated land in a militarily occupied territory (PDF p.179-180).
Related pages
Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, Judaization, Demographic problem, Eyal Weizman