Since the occupation of the eastern part of Jerusalem in 1967, occupation authorities have used urban planning as a tool to realize their goal for Jerusalem: to control as much land as possible with the smallest Palestinian presence possible, and to maintain its so-called “demographic balance” (limiting the Palestinian residents to 30% or less of the city’s total population). In 1977, then-head of the occupation-run municipality’s planning policy Israel Kimhi said "a cornerstone in the planning of Jerusalem is the demographic question... That decision, concerning the city’s rate of growth, serves today as one of the criteria for the success of the process of Jerusalem’s consolidation as the capital of Israel.”
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