Developments in the Levant have not been good news for the American administration as its client state, Israel, continues to push annexation of Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. Last month, Zionists clashed with Palestinians in Sheik Jarrah after a Palestinian family lost its home to a court order for eviction. Three families have been evicted in the predominately Arab neighborhood in the last year. A Jewish settlement association won its legal claim to historic Jewish ownership of the land and has plans to build a large housing complex there. The neighborhood is just north of the Arab Old Quarter. Israel claims sovereignty over all Jerusalem including the eastern sections taken from Jordan in the 1967 war and has maintained a consistent public stance that there will never be "two Jerusalems". The Israeli hard line is encouraged by American fundamentalists who wish to see Jewish control of the Holy City of God, predicted in various Bible passages to occur at the parousia. The United Nations has called the demolitions, evictions and flow of settlers "provocative actions" that "make resuming negotiations and achieving a two-state solution more difficult". Of course stating the obvious does not deter Israel. In 2008 Israel revoked the residency permits of more Palestinians from East Jerusalem than during any other year since the 1967 war. Zionist Avigdor Liberman, the foreign minister in Israel's coalition government, reaffirmed their willingness to continue the absorption of East Jerusalem despite Prime Minister Netanyahu's call for a ten month moratorium on building. Settlers have installed fake foundations in East Jerusalem in an attempt to circumvent the freeze which allows builders to complete construction already in progress. [photo: Arab resident Rafaq al-Kurd is restrained by his wife, NY Times]