Disputed Jerusalem Neighborhood Built on Jewish Land

Jewish land bought and paid for. From Disputed Jerusalem Neighborhood Built on Jewish Land:

Israel's Ministry of Construction and Housing this week invited contractors to bid on a contract to build 307 new housing units in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa. Har Homa is a neighborhood inside the Jerusalem city limits, at the edge of PA-controlled Bethlehem, that has more than 1,000 dwellings, housing some 6,000 residents.

Har Homa sits on 210 acres of land that Jews purchased from local Arab landowners in the 1920s. It is therefore Jewish-owned land, said Israel Kimhi of the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies.

David Baker, an official in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office, said that construction in Har Homa and elsewhere in Jerusalem is not settlement construction, nor is it a violation of Israel's commitment to the first phase of the road map. There are about 180,000 Israelis who live in neighborhoods like Har Homa that became part of Jerusalem after 1967.