PM: No chance Israel will cede east Jerusalem areas like Har Homa

Olmert shows defiance, but it is no substitute for crushing military force. Via Haaretz Service and News Agencies:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday that Israel would keep expanding a neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem. The premier was speaking at a press conference in Jerusalem with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In one of the highlights of Merkel's three-day visit marking the 60th anniversary of Israel's creation, the two countries upgraded their ties, giving Israel a rare status in Germany shared by France, Italy, Spain, Poland and Russia. Olmert told reporters that Har Homa, a neighborhood in the section of the Jewish Holy City of Jerusalem claimed by the Palestinians, is an inseparable part of the capital. He said Israel would continue building in those areas of Jerusalem, including Har Homa, that it expects to keep under a final peace agreement. "Everyone knows that there is no chance that the State of Israel will give up a neighborhood like ... Har Homa. It is an inseparable part of Jerusalem," Olmert said during the press conference.

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.