Israel’s housing minister may rent home in East Jerusalem

Uri Ariel, who moved to a Gaza settlement in solidarity before 2005 withdrawal, looks into taking an apartment in disputed Silwan

Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel (C) at a press conference promoting new housing units to be built in the Jewish settlement of Tel Tzion, near Jerusalem, on August 13, 2013 (photo credit: Flash90)
Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel (C) at a press conference promoting new housing units to be built in the Jewish settlement of Tel Tzion, near Jerusalem, on August 13, 2013 (photo credit: Flash90)

Housing Minister Uri Ariel is reportedly considering a move to the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.

Channel 10 reported that Ariel and his wife have looked into several options for renting an apartment and staying in the contentious neighborhood a few nights a week and that the minister has been in touch with the personal security division of the Shin Bet about the possibility. Ariel, a leading member of the Orthodox-nationalist Jewish Home coalition party, is a prominent advocate of building Jewish housing throughout East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and supports the annexation of the entire West Bank to Israel.

Ariel, who moved to a Gaza settlement, Kfar Darom, as an act of solidarity before Israel evacuated the Strip in 2005, visited Silwan this week to look at possible rentals, the TV report said.

Silwan, a neighborhood just outside the Old City walls, has been the site of rising tensions recently, as dozens of Jews have moved into homes in the mostly Arab neighborhood on two occasions in the last month, most recently on Sunday. One day later Palestinians hurled Molotov cocktails at the apartment building.

In this photo taken Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014, Israeli police officers guard the house of Ziad Qarain, that Jewish settlers moved into, at the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, East Jerusalem. (photo credit: AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
In this photo taken Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014, Israeli police officers guard the house of Ziad Qarain, that Jewish settlers moved into, at the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, East Jerusalem. (photo credit: AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

In a similar incident on September 30, a group of Jews moved into several buildings in the same neighborhood. The buildings were purchased by an American-based company, Kendall Finances, one of several groups seeking to expand the Jewish presence in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem during the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed it, in a move never recognized by the international community. Some 200,000 Israelis live there alongside some 300,000 Palestinians.

Israel regards the entire city as its “undivided capital” and does not see construction or the purchase of houses in the eastern sector as settlement activity.

While the Israeli government is behind major construction efforts in the area, it says it has no say over private real-estate deals in East Jerusalem.

Palestinians say that Israelis are trying to increase the number of Jews living in Arab neighborhoods in order to weaken the Palestinians’ claim over East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

On Sunday, President Reuven Rivlin spoke out against such deals conducted between Arab sellers and right-wing Jewish groups.

“Jerusalem cannot be a city in which building is done in secret or where moving into apartments is done in the dead of night,” he said.

Ariel would not be the first Israeli politician to own property in East Jerusalem. The late prime minister Ariel Sharon owned an apartment in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, but rarely visited due to security concerns.

The Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

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