Jerusalem - Arab middlemen help Jewish settlers buy homes in East Jerusalem

Jerusalem - Arye King answers his mobile phone with a traditional Arab greeting before switching into Hebrew to inquire about his most recent property deal.

Mr King, one of the best-known settler activists moving Jews into east Jerusalem, which is still predominantly Arab, spends a good deal of his time on the telephone. The surprising part is that many of his business partners are Arabs who are helping him to get settlers into the contested eastern half of the city.

“There are always Arabs who are willing to work with us — at a price, of course,” he told The Times. “This is our method. Everyone knows what we are doing but they can’t stop us. It’s very easy, no problem at all, to find Arabs who are willing to help us.”

Settlers have long been using Arab front men or puppets to buy land in east Jerusalem, he said. It is one more reason why he believes that settlers will continue to expand their presence in Palestinian neighbourhoods, despite the recent diplomatic furore.

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The official Israeli position on settlement construction in east Jerusalem is far from clear. Binyamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, has said that Israel will continue to build there but settler groups said that there was a slowing of construction.

“They are creating problems and putting up obstacles to try and stop us from building. They say one thing, but on the ground it is another. So they don’t call it a freeze — they call it a slowdown,” said Mr King, the founder of the Israel Land Fund.

He works with several other groups and helps with the buying and development of east Jerusalem settlements. Mr King explained the way that he and others got round the system. He uses Christian or Muslim Arabs as puppet buyers from central and northern Israel who want properties in east Jerusalem. Once a deal has gone through the deeds are transferred to Jewish groups or families who move in. In other cases Arab developers are used to expand existing projects so that the construction is not attached to Jewish interests.

“Most of the time the people have no idea that it is going to Jews until the day they move in. And then it is too late,” he said.

According to officials in Jerusalem’s local government there is nothing illegal about what Mr King is doing. It illustrates, however, the complexity of stopping settlers from expanding their presence in the city’s eastern half. No physical border divides east and west Jerusalem but Palestinians want east Jerusalem to be the capital of their future state. Israel annexed the area in 1967 and has increased the Jewish presence over the armistice line since.

Although Mr Netanyahu has agreed to a partial freeze on construction in the West Bank settlements he has maintained that Jerusalem is a special case. This week he vowed that Jerusalem would remain the “united and Jewish” capital of Israel, including the settlements in east Jerusalem.

Even if the US succeeds in persuading Mr Netanyahu to impose a freeze, activists such as Mr King would make it difficult to enforce. In the space of an hour his phone rings nine times, nearly always concerning property deals; he names at least four east Jerusalem neighbourhoods. “We currently have more than 400 housing units that we have gotten approval to build in east Jerusalem. To our great joy the local authorities don’t know about it and neither does the Government,” he said.

Yitzchak Pindrus, the deputy mayor of the city, said that he was aware of such activities but was often powerless. “If someone private goes and buys a home, what does anyone in the world really expect the municipality to do?

“There are quite a few of these cases, but they are private interactions between buyers and banks and sellers. We can’t intervene and no government in the world would expect us to do otherwise.”

Mr King believes however that the city is caving in to US and European demands. “They are going to try and stop us but they won’t,” he said. “2009 was our most successful year in building in Jerusalem and 2010, as far as I see it, will be even more successful.” 

London Times