East Jerusalem have reached a mass scale.127 In the recent years, 94% of all Palestinian building permit applications have been rejected.128 Palestinians don’t love to build without a permit, they simply don’t get the ability to build with a permit. If we look at the figures, since 1967 until today, the Jerusalem Municipality gave only approximately 4,000 permits in East Jerusalem. On Israeli side they gave approximately 53,000.129 Assuming that the only answer to unauthorized housing is to demolish them,130 the Jerusalem Master Plans ignore the above mentioned difficulties and practices related to the process of obtaining a building permit and do not consider, instead, the option of legalizing homes built without a permit. Furthermore,, the extension of land for Palestinian use within the municipal borders of Jerusalem becomes rather impossible seen the limited reserves left to build on. In order to enforce the above mentioned demographic balance, different ‘tools’ have been exploited. According to the Arab Studies Society131, the Israeli policy in East Jerusalem is currently put into practice through the confiscation of large quantities of lands; the building of Jewish-Israeli colonies; the shrinking of areas available for Palestinian construction of homes; the inflation requirements and fees to make it difficult for Palestinians to apply for construction permits; the allocation of services to Palestinian residential areas; the sealing of East Jerusalem from the rest of the Palestinian areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip; and the conduction of a policy of denying residency rights and creating difficulties on Palestinian demographic registration. See BADIL’s Working Paper No. 16 on Denial of Residency 127 BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, Israeli Land Grab and Forced Population Transfer of Palestinians, A Handbook for Vulnerable Individuals and Communities, 109. 128 ECCP, EU Obligations and Duty to End Israeli Policies of Forced Transfer, Colonialism and Apartheid in Occupied East Jerusalem, 14. 129 Ahmad Sub Laban, field researcher and expert regarding planning and zoning in Jerusalem. Interview, 3 November 2014. 130 Chiodelli, “The Jerusalem Master Plan: Planning into the Conflict,” 13. 131 The Arab Studies Society, Map and Survey Department, Breaking the Siege of Denying the Natural Growth of Palestinian Neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, 10. 42