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Arab Jerusalemites priced out of own neighborhoods

Israel's policy of restricting Palestinian growth while encouraging Israelis to settle in Jerusalem’s Palestinian neighborhoods has always made it hard for the city's Arab population to find decent and affordable homes, and things are worse than ever.
A construction site is seen in Pisgat Zeev (R), an urban settlement in an area Israel annexed to Jerusalem after capturing it in the 1967 Middle East war, as the Shuafat refugee camp (rear) in the West Bank is seen behind a section of the controversial Israeli barrier, July 28, 2013. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday urged divided rightists in his cabinet to approve the release of 104 Arab prisoners in order to restart peace talk with the Palestinians. The prisoner release would allow Netanyahu to

When Labib Odeh was looking for a house, he was unable to find anything he could afford in the Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. Odeh works as the director of the local branch of an international organization he preferred not to name in his interview with Al-Monitor. His salary should have been enough for him to make the needed down payment and monthly mortgages of a reasonable home for his family of six. He had been renting for some time and felt he had reached a stage in his life where he could afford to buy his family a home. But the only one he could afford was in the East Jerusalem settlement of Pisgat Zeev, not far from Beit Hanina, where he found a house for 1 million shekels ($264,000). In Palestinian neighborhoods, the same 120-square-meter (1,291-square-foot) house with a small yard would cost twice as much.

Khalil Toufakji, the director of the Maps and Survey Department at the Orient House in Jerusalem, explained to Al-Monitor that the housing crisis in East Jerusalem is a direct result of the Israeli government's plans to restrict Palestinian growth. “A decision was taken under the administration [of Prime Minister Golda Meir] to make sure the Palestinian population does not to exceed 28% of both sectors of East and West Jerusalem,” Toufakji said.

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