Ramallah: The Israeli regime’s Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel is considering moving to a Palestinian neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem — that has already become the centre of a firestorm due to Israeli colonists moving into it.
Ariel has examined several apartments in the Silwan neighbourhood as a future apartment.
One of the most radical and hard-line ultra-Orthodox members of the regime’s government, he has instructed an Israeli VIP security unit to prepare for the move. Senior Israeli security officials have announced that the move might spark additional violence in occupied East Jerusalem.
Jerusalem Online reported on Monday that Ariel intends to relocate following the differences between the US government and the Israeli regime on Israeli colonisation of Palestinian land and access to Al Haram Al Sharif in the holy city.
It is the view of Israeli government seniors, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that Jews can choose to live wherever they wish in occupied Jerusalem. The regime sees the city as its “eternal capital”, but the international community recognises the eastern half of it as occupied territory.
The news website said that Ariel’s decision to relocate to Silwan was done to examine the Prime Minister’s steadfast declaration of allowing Jews freedom of choice regarding residency.
The late Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon bought an apartment in the gated Old City but rarely stayed there due to security risks.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) has condemned Ariel’s plans to relocate and branded his decision as provocative, dangerous and one which opens the door to open confrontation that will have serious consequences.
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, said in a statement that the Israeli minister’s plans to relocate in Silwan clearly shows the essence of the Israeli intention to encourage and widen colonisation in the eastern occupied part of Jerusalem.
“Israel is destroying all chances for peace in the region by annexing and Judaising the occupied East Jerusalem,” she said. “The Israeli plans clearly violate the UN resolutions, which recognise East Jerusalem as occupied territory which is subject to the Fourth Geneva Convention and categorically reject Israeli sovereignty over it.”
“The world should intervene and hold Israel accountable for its unfinished violations which will lead the entire region into a vicious cycle of violence,” she said.
