Netanyahu said on Jerusalem Day that the Israeli government will build in Jerusalem. Photo: Berthold Werner via Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said he has a “clear position” that the Israeli government will “build in Jerusalem.”

“I ordered the construction of the Har Homa neighborhood, and today there are tens of thousands of residents there, making it a city within a city,” Netanyahu said during a special Knesset session marking Jerusalem Day, which was celebrated a day earlier on May 17. “I ordered the construction of the Maaleh Hazeitim neighborhood. We are building in Ramot, we are building in Gilo, we are building in Pisgat Ze’ev, and we are building in Ramat Shlomo. We are building inside [Jerusalem] and we are building in its peripheral neighborhoods.”

Netanyahu vowed that Jerusalem “will never return to being a frontline or a border city.”

“We removed the fences, walls, fortifications, and mine fields. … We have put its parts back together,” he said. “This is not to say the unification is perfect, but we will not go back to the past. Jerusalem is located in the heart of Israel and we will not permit any enemy who seeks our destruction to be there.”