Jerusalem’s Committee for Planning and Construction will discuss on Tuesday a plan to build 1,600 housing units in the hareidi neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo, Haaretz reports Friday – four years after the same announcement caused an international uproar. 

The construction at Ramat Shlomo caused a crisis in Israel-US relations in 2010, when 1,600 units were approved just as US Vice President Joe Biden was flying to Israel on an official visit. 

But the project has apparently been finally greenlit to move forward – despite a de facto building freeze in Judea-Samaria and eastern Jerusalem – sparking ire from the extreme left NGO Ir Amim. 

“In recent weeks it has become apparent that the international community is intensifying its disapproval of Israel’s unilateral actions. Instead of being attentive to the concerns of her allies, the government is expediting the process, ignoring the damage caused to Israel,” the organization said.

Ramat Shlomo, despite being described by some as a “Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem,” is in fact located in northern Jerusalem, between Ramot with 60,000 Jewish residents and the Har Hotzvim Industrial Park. 

The area is one of many in Jerusalem which is bursting at the seams due to the deepening housing crisis, which is due in no small part to the “covert” building freeze on Jewish construction.

Indeed, this is not the first time that the government has approved to push forward with building projects in Jerusalem over the past month – nor that leftist groups have overstated the “intensification” of building there. 

Earlier this month, extreme left group Peace Now leaked to the international media that Jerusalem would finally build 2,610 new housing units in the Givat Hamatos region, after tenders for the project had already been approved as far back as 2012. 

Meanwhile, leftist organizations remain quiet on the green light given for rampant illegal construction in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem where there are more than 40,000 illegal housing units, in an attempt to establish facts on the ground to divide Jerusalem and establish the groundwork for a Palestinian state.

And they are also on the front lines of the movement against the government for its alleged apathy toward the housing crisis, despite the fact that the construction freeze itself has checked the natural growth of a region in Judea and Samaria that is reportedly over 90% unpopulated.