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Palestine Monitor Barghouthi: Jerusalem Master Plan To Erase Palestinian Existence From The City Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative strongly condemned the new Master plan, which is set to be approved by the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee. The document calls for the expansion of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem, on privately owned Arab property. ”The approval of this plan” - Dr. Barghouthi explained – “represents an unprecedented Israeli effort to ‘judaise’ East Jerusalem. Since it has been occupied in 1967, this is the latest chapter of discriminatory policies daily carried out through attacks on Palestinian population, evictions from their homes, Jerusalem ID card confiscations. Using insidious bureaucratic tools, Israel is further trying to isolate Jerusalem from Palestinians.” “The unilateral Israeli actions in Jerusalem are carried out in blatant violation of the so-called peace process. With this policy plan, Israel continues to engage in intensive planning in occupied territory, with the aim to maintain a Jewish majority and jeopardize the final status of Jerusalem in the negotiations. Israel’s tools for negotiations with Palestinians are the bulldozers, the expansion of the settlement units, changing the demographic composition of the city to favour the Jewish-Israeli population. We are facing a systematic expulsion of Palestinians from Jerusalem which is against a future establishment of a fully sovereign Palestinian state”. “The government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has set impossible conditions on all issues, including Jerusalem, borders, settlements, water and the Jordan Valley. The answer to these policies lies in the expansion of the popular non-violent resistance, the restoration of national unity and abandoning any illusion that the current negotiations will give positive results. We cannot wait for Israel to take serious and positive action, as it will never happen”.
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