The facts about buying land in Jerusalem's latest settlement

Despite condemnation from the United States and other countries, Israel is forging ahead with its plan to disrupt the Palestinian urban continuum in the Jerusalem area, while preventing the sale of real estate to non-Jews.
A signpost is seen in Giv'at HaMatos, a neighbourhood on the southern fringes of Jerusalem's city limits where according to anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now, Israel decided to move forward on a settler housing project slated for construction since 2012, October 2, 2014. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Wednesday in Washington. Netanyahu's visit was clouded by word of Israel's approval of the planned construction of more than 2,600 settler homes in mostly Arab Eas
A signpost is seen in Givat Hamatos, a neighborhood on the southern fringes of Jerusalem's city limits where, according to anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now, Israel decided to move forward on a settler housing project. Photo taken Oct. 2, 2014. - REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
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Akiva Eldar
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Last week’s events in New York and Jerusalem took me back six years to an isolated farm on the outskirts of Oxford, England. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Sept. 29 UN declaration referred to
"new opportunities" for regional peace. His government promoted construction plans in Givat Hamatos, a Jerusalem neighborhood across the Green Line, while the Jewish settlement in the East Jerusalem Arab neighborhood Silwan expanded. The combination reminded me of an Israeli-Arab meeting held in Oxford in October 2008.

That event can illustrate the extent to which the talk of peace in New York contradicts the settlement activity on the ground. The Oxford Research Group, a UK think tank, brought together the former director of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki al-Faisal, Egyptian diplomat and future Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmi, chef de cabinet of the Arab League Secretary-General Hesham Youssef, senior Fatah official Jibril Rajoub, the former director of the Israeli prime minister’s office and foreign ministry Avi Gil, Maj. Gen. (res.) Danny Rothschild, Brig. Gen. Israela Oron, former Shin Bet adviser Dr. Matti Steinberg, Middle East scholar Eli Podeh and yours truly.

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