Aryeh King
Aryeh KingIsrael news photo: Flash 90

The Director of the Israel Lands Fund, Aryeh King of the Power to Israel party, said on Thursday that the reports regarding the recent approval of construction in Jerusalem are nothing but election-season spin.

"Netanyahu is running a campaign that places Jerusalem at the center of public discourse," King explained to Arutz Sheva. "Bibi is trying to lie to the public and present a false picture in which he is building and widening the city, but in actuality, the facts are opposite."

King said that the plans for construction at Ramat Shlomo in northern Jerusalem have not truly been approved, press reports notwithstanding. "Bibi is recycling plans from two years ago," he charged. "In actual fact, no plan has been approved. If Bibi is elected, there will be no construction – not at Ramat Shlomo and not at Mevasseret Adumim [E1]."

King noted that the Jerusalem District Planning Committee rejected this week the construction of 700 housing units for Jews at Givat Hamatos, near Gilo. "On the other hand," he revealed, "a plan for building 600 housing units for Arabs in the same area was approved."

"This is an area south of Talpiot and north of Gilo, and the plans for Jews have been stuck there for over 10 years," he said. "Bibi's PR people do not tell you this."