46
Israeli Land Grab and Forced Population Transfer of Palestinians
East Jerusalem
Owing to production constraints, a full outline of Israeli law will not be given here
but rather the most pertinent laws to the issue of land confiscation, namely for Public
Purposes and Absentee Property.
Approximately 35 percent of land in East Jerusalem was confiscated in order to build
Israeli colonies.177 However, even those pieces of land that remained in Palestinian
hands were hindered by building restrictions of various sorts as provided for in the
Master Plan.178
Master Plan
Planning in East Jerusalem is contingent on a ‘Master Plan’, the ‘Jerusalem Master
Plan 2000’, which dictates development and laws for specific areas. The Master
Plan is a comprehensive Israeli Planning Scheme that serves as the authoritative
blueprint for all municipal planning within the Jerusalem Municipality.179 The Master
Plan zones areas intended for specific functions such as residency, urban building,
transportation, etc.180 All Local Town Planning Schemes developed for specific
neighborhoods within the Municipality must conform to the zoning and planning
provisions detailed within the Master Plan. The currently proposed Master Plan is
a composition of successive Israeli Master Plans entailing both minor and major
adjustments for urban planning in the Jerusalem Municipality, including both the
Jerusalem Master Plan 2020 and the more recent Jerusalem Master Plan 2030.181 In
December 2012, the UN Special Rapporteur for Adequate Housing, Raquel Rolnik,
reported that:
The Local Outline Plan–Jerusalem 2000, although not finalized or
officially approved, is the master plan setting out the municipality‘s
strategies up to 2020. This plan is the first to include both East
and West Jerusalem. While it includes questions of planning and
177 Ir Amim, ‘The Planning Policy in East Jerusalem’ (2007); available from http://eng.ir-amim.org.
il/?CategoryID=369.
178 Ir Amim, ‘The Planning Policy in East Jerusalem’.
179 The text of the currently proposed Jerusalem Master Plan 2000 can be accessed here: http://www.
coalitionforjerusalem.org/main.php?id=30.
180 The text of the currently proposed Jerusalem Master Plan 2000 can be accessed here: http://www.
coalitionforjerusalem.org/main.php?id=30.
181 The Civic Coalition for Defending Palestinians’ Rights in Jerusalem, Aggressive Urbanism- Urban
Planning and the Displacement of Palestinians Within and from Occupied East Jerusalem, December
2009; available from http://www.civiccoalition-jerusalem.org/ccdprj.ps/new/pdfs/Aggressive%20
Urbanism%20Report.pdf; accessed 14 May 2013.
Select target paragraph3
Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents