JERUSALEM – President Obama's administration is carefully monitoring Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem and has already protested to the highest levels of Israeli government about evidence found of housing expansion in those areas, according to informed Israeli officials speaking to WND.

The officials, who spoke on condition that their names be withheld, said in recent weeks Obama's Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, oversaw the establishment of an apparatus based in the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem that closely monitors eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods, incorporating regular tours on a daily basis.

Said one Israeli official: "If the U.S. notices even one bulldozer on the region of E1, they immediately call us on the level of [Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert and ask Olmert what that bulldozer is doing there and whether we are planning anything in Jerusalem."

The official was referring to the Jewish neighborhood of Maale Adumim, located in eastern Jerusalem.

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Olmert's government previously approved the expansion of the community, but new construction largely has been halted.

The official said in recent meetings, Mitchell strongly protested Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem. Mitchell also condemned the work of nationalist Jewish groups to purchase property in Jerusalem's Old City, including in areas intimately tied to Judaism.

Israel recaptured eastern Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount – Judaism's holiest site – during the 1967 Six Day War.

The Palestinians, however, have claimed eastern Jerusalem as a future capital. About 244,000 Arabs live in Jerusalem, mostly in eastern neighborhoods, out of a total population of 724,000, the majority Jewish.

A number of Arab-majority eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods widely regarded as slated for a Palestinian state include large numbers of Arabs – over 100,000 – who live on Jewish-owned land illegally. The Jewish National Fund, a U.S.-based nonprofit, owns hundred of acres of eastern Jerusalem land in which tens of thousands of Arabs illegally constructed homes the past few decades. Arabs are now the majority on the Jewish-owned land in question.

 

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