Hundreds of people attended a dedication ceremony Wednesday night of 60 new apartments in a Jewish complex located in the heart of an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem, DPA reported.
The event was attended by Mayor Nir Barkat and several right-wing government members, including three members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling Likud party, Israel Radio reported.
A minister from the ultra-Orthodox Shas coalition party and from the ultra-nationalist Jewish Home also attended, as well as representatives of the ultra-right Ateret Cohanim organization, which advances Jewish construction throughout East Jerusalem. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
The Jewish complex, Maaleh HaZeitim, is located in the heart of the Arab neighbourhood Ras al-Amud.
While many Israelis support the construction of Jewish neighbourhoods expanding onto empty occupied land beyond the green line separating Israel from the West Bank, and see them as an integral part as their unrecognized capital, building Jewish apartment complexes in the heart of populated Arab neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem is seen as a provocation even by many centrist Israelis.
With 110 apartments, Maaleh HaZeitim is one of the largest Jewish compounds in Arab East Jerusalem. Fifty apartments were inaugurated in a first stage some nine years ago. Families had over the past months begun moving in to the 60 new ones.
Some 30 left-wing activists, including a city council member of the left-liberal Meretz party, protested the dedication outside the complex.
Knesset (parliament) speaker Reuven Rivlin, also of the Likud, justified the move by saying eight generations of his family had lived on the hilltop, and harshly criticized US President Barack Obama for his remarks last week in favour of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders.
Environment Minister Eldad Erdan, of the Likud, said Netanyahu should be strengthened in his position that Jerusalem should "not be touched."
"An Israel without Jerusalem is like a body without a soul," the radio quoted him as saying.
Jerusalem's independent, but right-wing Jewish mayor, Barkat, congratulated Netanyahu for saying in Washington Tuesday that Jerusalem should not be divided.
His municipality would not "discriminate according to race or religion" and would continue to allow anyone to build anywhere, he insisted.
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