Plans for largest East Jerusalem settlement filed for approval

A plan for the building of a new settlement, Ma'aleh David, in the middle of an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem was filed for approval by the relevant municipal committee at the Jerusalem Municipality. The plan calls for the construction of 104 housing units on the land where the former headquarters of the Judea and Samaria police was housed in the neighborhood of Ras al-Amud.

The new settlement is planned to be connected to an existing Jewish neighborhood, Ma'aleh Zeitim, and together will be occupied by some 200 families, forming the largest Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem.

The land on which the new housing is planned was, until 18 months ago, the compound of the Judea and Samaria police headquarters, which has since moved to a new building in Area E-1. Once the police evacuated the area it returned to the control of the Committee of the Bokharan Community, which has held ownership over the property and the structures there since before 1948.

Last week the Committee filed the plans with the local municipal committee for approval.

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It's "Arab" only by virtue of ethnic cleansing carried out by the King of Jordan. The US should not be legitimizing those actions, but will attempt it anyone, on the principle that Jews should live where they're told.

Jewish Ownership From the 19th Century
The story of the Maaleh Zeitim neighborhood begins at the end of the 19th century, when two Jews, Wittenberg and Nissan Bach, bought the land it stands upon. They set it aside to be used for Jewish burial and entrusted it to two local Hassidic sects, Lubavich and Volin. However, the Turks, who ruled at the time, forbade the burial of Jews south of the Jericho highway and the land remained desolate.
During the British Mandate period Arabs grew wheat on the land, which was used to bake the Passover shmura matza (unleavened bread which is guarded from harvest until baking to prevent any leavening) for Jerusalem. With the end of the Mandate and the ensuing Hashemite occupation, the land was made into the private property of the King of Jordan and soon returned to its desolate state.
Immediately following the liberation of Judea and Samaria in the Six Day War, the controversy began with an Arab who claimed to own the land according to the Jordanian land registry. After a lengthy court case, Israel's Supreme Court ruled that the Arab's documents were forgeries and returned to land to its former Hassidic owners. Ten years passed before the land was purchased by Dr. Irving Moskowitz, who decided to found a Jewish community at the site.
On the day before Rosh HaShanah (Jewish New Year) of 5757, three couples and six young men moved to Maaleh Zeitim, with the help of the Ateret Kohanim association. The new residents moved into two temporary homes - but then-Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu ordered the evacuation of the area. In the end, the families agreed to leave, but ten young men stayed to strengthen the location.
"We continued to use the two structures, one as an office and one for living," explained Aryeh King, one of the ten residents at the time. "During the first months we really felt like we were running a covert operation. Sometimes the police would come to make sure we were only ten people,and if needed we would hide in the back of closets."

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