Israelis Act to Encircle East Jerusalem
Enclaves in Arab Areas, Illegal Building Projects Seen Intended to Consolidate Control

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The Israeli government has sometimes violated its own laws and regulations to advance the encircling effort, the Post investigation found. Critics of the plan charge that the government is subsidizing and protecting Jewish groups that are deliberately scuttling peace efforts by establishing Jewish enclaves in overwhelmingly Palestinian neighborhoods. As part of the effort, the Israeli government began work on expanding the West Bank's largest settlement, Maleh Adumim, without required building permits and in violation of the settlement's master development plan. The work was ordered stopped in September after Post inquires about the project. In addition, Israeli security forces seized a Palestinian-owned hotel on the border of eastern Jerusalem after expelling its owners and declaring them absentee. Nearby, a private Jewish organization has bought and occupied two illegal houses that the Israeli government is paying private security guards to protect. "There's a dovetailing of government actions and settlement activity," said Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer who has fought numerous court battles against Jewish takeovers of Arab-owned houses and land. The government, he said, has adapted its pro-settlement policies "to service messianic groups" that are moving into Arab neighborhoods... A report by the State Attorney's Office that has not yet been released concluded that almost every major ministry in the Israeli government assisted in the construction, expansion and maintenance of illegal settlement outposts, according to the Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth. The report found that "every echelon, from minister to low-level clerks, ignored settlers' violations of the law . . . bypassing the zoning laws and master plans" and improperly funneling state money to settlement expansions, even after being ordered not to by Israel's attorney general, according to the newspaper.