Moving into East Jerusalem

Shoe-horned into the slopes of Sheikh Jarah, an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem, is the newer Jewish enclave Shimon Hatzadik, or Simon the Righteous.

The 40 Israeli residents, guarded by a privately hired gunman, may soon have more compatriots just around the bend if the Shepherd's Hotel, a forlorn, century-old building, is demolished and replaced with 90 housing units, as planned.

The reason the newcomers came is the same reason the longtime residents would like to see them leave: The more Jews who settle in East Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods such as these, the less likely it is that Palestinians will be able to build the capital of their hoped-for state here.

The Israelis, aided by ultranationalist groups that buy up Arab properties and by the tacit support of the government, see themselves as pioneers. But Palestinians see them as settlers - and the European Union, soon to release a controversial report attacking "the construction and expansion of illegal settlements, by private entities and the Israeli government, in and around East Jerusalem" - appears to agree.

The report, leaked to the press, sharply criticizes the growth of Israeli enclaves in East Jerusalem neighborhoods that surround the Old City, as well as Israeli plans to build up the "E1" area, a tract of land between Jerusalem and the East Jerusalem settlement of Maale Adumim. Such Israeli expansion, critics argue, will cut off Palestinian areas in the West Bank from each other and from East Jerusalem, where Palestinians hope to build their capital.

"Several inter-linked Israeli policies are reducing the possibility of reaching a final status agreement on Jerusalem, and demonstrate a clear Israeli intention to turn the annexation of East Jerusalem into a concrete fact," the draft EU report states, citing the ongoing construction of the security barrier, which runs over the Green Line, Israel's pre-1967 boundary, into the West Bank.

In a separate report issued Thursday, the prominent Israeli human rights group Btselem presented what the group said was evidence that the wall's route was making way for settlement expansion in the territories, rather than focusing exclusively on security. That conclusion seemed to be supported by a key member of Ariel Sharon's government, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, whose spokesman said Thursday that the borders of a future Palestinian state would be similar to the line drawn by the security barrier.

The EU report, scheduled to be released Dec. 12, comes at a complex time, with EU-Israel ties just beginning to improve. While European involvement in recent years was dismissed by Israel as overtly pro-Palestinian, the Israeli government recently acquiesced to putting European monitors at Rafah, the border crossing between Egypt and Gaza.

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