10,000 illegal Arab living units in Jerusalem
" At a conference that took place on January 7, 2002, at the Jerusalem
Center for Women, Hatem Abed El-Khader Eid, a member of the Palestinian
Legislative Council representing the Jerusalem district, proudly announced
that, during the last four years, Palestinians have erected 6,000 homes
without building permits, out of which only 198 were demolished. Eid's
statement regarding the massive illegal building campaign, and his mention
of the figure 6,000 illegal living units, was also picked up in the weekly
newspaper Jerusalem. Eid declared, "we in the Palestinian Authority are
willing to build ten homes for every house demolished by Israel" (emphasis
added). According to a report in the newspaper Ha'tsofeh, Iran, Saudi
Arabia, and the PA are among the sources of funding for the wave of illegal
construction in Jerusalem ."
"In sum, the knowledgeable sources all agree that thousands of illegal units
are going up. Extrapolating from the assessments, the number might well
exceed 10,000 if the tally were to begin five or ten years ago."
Illegal Construction in Jerusalem: A Variation on an Alarming Global
Phenomenon
by Justus Reid Weiner, Adv
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=15692
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