The city’s Municipal Planning and Construction Committee Chairman, Meir Turgeman, declared that he intends to authorize thousands of housing units that have been frozen, including 3,000 apartments in the neighborhood of Gilo, 2,600 in the neighborhood of Givat Hamatos, and 1,500 in the neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo. Turgeman explained that all those apartments were put on hold after Washington pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in turn pressured Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, not to build on lands in Jerusalem that were not part of the Jewish state before the 1967 war, lands the international community does not recognize as part of Israel today, and where the Palestinians demand to establish a capital for their aspired-future state. Nevertheless, the city’s construction and planning committee chairman stressed that Trump’s electoral victory was a green light for all of Israel’s capital construction permits that had been held up thus far.
