Jødenes overtakelse av Øst-Jerusalem pågår uavhengig av regjeringsvedtak og hva USA måtte mene. Via stråmenn kjøper jøder opp tomter og hus, og ingen kan hindre dem i å flytte inn.

Det finnes meklere som har spesialisert seg på å kjøpe eiendom i Øst-Jerusalem. De får hjelp av arabiske mellommenn. En av de mest suksessrike er Arye King.

He works with several other groups and helps with the buying and development of east Jerusalem settlements. Mr King explained the way that he and others got round the system. He uses Christian or Muslim Arabs as puppet buyers from central and northern Israel who want properties in east Jerusalem. Once a deal has gone through the deeds are transferred to Jewish groups or families who move in. In other cases Arab developers are used to expand existing projects so that the construction is not attached to Jewish interests.

«Most of the time the people have no idea that it is going to Jews until the day they move in. And then it is too late,» he said.

According to officials in Jerusalem’s local government there is nothing illegal about what Mr King is doing. It illustrates, however, the complexity of stopping settlers from expanding their presence in the city’s eastern half. No physical border divides east and west Jerusalem but Palestinians want east Jerusalem to be the capital of their future state. Israel annexed the area in 1967 and has increased the Jewish presence over the armistice line since.

Viseborgermesteren innrømmer at det er lite de kan gjøre.

Even if the US succeeds in persuading Mr Netanyahu to impose a freeze, activists such as Mr King would make it difficult to enforce. In the space of an hour his phone rings nine times, nearly always concerning property deals; he names at least four east Jerusalem neighbourhoods. «We currently have more than 400 housing units that we have gotten approval to build in east Jerusalem. To our great joy the local authorities don’t know about it and neither does the Government,» he said.

Yitzchak Pindrus, the deputy mayor of the city, said that he was aware of such activities but was often powerless. «If someone private goes and buys a home, what does anyone in the world really expect the municipality to do?

«There are quite a few of these cases, but they are private interactions between buyers and banks and sellers. We can’t intervene and no government in the world would expect us to do otherwise.»

Arab ‘middlemen’ help Jewish settlers buy homes in East Jerusalem