Israeli municipal authorities moved ahead Monday with a plan to raze some 22 Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, risking more US-Israeli friction, in a building project seen by Palestinians as settlement expansion. Mayor Nir Barkat asked the municipal planning committee to give preliminary approval to the plan to make room for an Israeli tourist center. City spokesman Stephan Miller said the board gave zoning approval for building 1,000 homes across 54 acres (22 hectares) in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan. The blueprint also calls for demolishing about 22 Palestinian homes. Palestinian leaders have described the project as another attempt by Israel to cement its claim to all of Jerusalem, whose eastern sector it captured in a 1967 and annexed in a move that is not recognized internationally. “This is a municipality of colonization,” said Adnan Al-Husseini, the Palestinian Authority-appointed governor of Jerusalem. “You cannot claim to be building ‘gardens' while you are depriving people of a house to live in.” Miller said the King's Garden project was intended “to improve the quality of life” in Silwan and that a park and public complex slated to be built in the area would be used by Arabs and Jews alike. Mayor Barkat first floated the plan months ago, but agreed to a last-minute request from Israel's prime minister to consult Palestinian residents before breaking ground. Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes has in the past provoked harsh reaction from the United States. “Now, after fine-tuning the plan and seeking more cooperation with the residents as far as their needs and improving the quality of their lives, the municipality is ready to submit the plans for the first stage of approval,” said Barkat's spokesman, Stephan Miller. The international community does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over east Jerusalem and the US wants Israel to freeze all Jewish settlement in Palestinian areas, including east Jerusalem, to facilitate Mideast peace talks. It also recently demanded that Israel lift its three-year old blockade of the Gaza Strp. The plan calls for the construction of shops, restaurants, art galleries and a large community center. Activists who want to block all demolitions issued a statement saying the plan “comes in the general context of (the) fast-track Judaization” of east Jerusalem. It pre-empts “the possibility of Jerusalem ever being a shared city, or indeed capital of a Palestinian state,” the statement said.
