TEL AVIV, May 3, 2010 (WAFA)- Despite immense international pressure to halt Jewish construction in east Jerusalem and in all areas over 1967 borders, Israel Land Fund founder Aryeh King on Sunday presented a plan that would see nearly 200,000 new housing units created there, the Jerusalem post reported.

Speaking at a conference at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center to discuss future development initiatives in the capital, King described a plan that would use privately owned land and property belonging to the Jewish National Fund to provide roughly 187,000 new homes in east Jerusalem, E-1 (between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim) and a chain of territory extending from Ramallah to Bethlehem.

“If Jerusalem doesn’t expand, and expand eastward, it will become the Gaza Strip,” King said.

Using a blown-up map of the city and its surrounding areas, King showed the audience where hundreds of dunams of land outside the northern Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood could contain roughly 12,000 new housing units.

Around the southern Gilo neighborhood, King said, 'there is enough similar land to build 60,000 units.'

“There are 800 dunams [80 hectares] in E-1, owned by a wealthy, Jewish philanthropist, that could prove room enough for 100,000 housing units,” King said. “The potential is enormous.”

King’s vision faces a number of obstacles, among them the area’s large Palestinian population, who is part of a future Palestinian state.