Jerusalem Web Review (June 2010) Contents
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CONFLICT IN CITIES AND THE CONTESTED STATE Everyday life and the possibilities for transformation in Belfast, Jerusalem and other divided cities www.conflictincities.org JERUSALEM WEB REVIEW June 2010 1 Jerusalem Web Review (June 2010) Contents Silwan 1. 'Israel's plan to raze E. Jerusalem homes is an obstacle to peace' 2. Crunchtime for Silwan 3. Jerusalem Municipality plans to demolish 22 houses in Silwan to build archaeological garden. 4. The Dig Dividing Jerusalem 5. Price Tag in Silwan Settlement Plans and Responses 6. What Freeze? 7. APN letter to Obama: Engage NOW to get Jerusalem under control 8. Jerusalem: An Open City? 9. Jerusalem master plan: Expansion of Jewish enclaves across the city 10. Planning committee to release blueprint outlining takeover of East Jerusalem 11. Fatah warns Israel: No more Jerusalem settlements Revoking residencies and expulsion 12. Barred from Jerusalem for crime of being Palestinian 13. Jerusalem politicians face expulsion - Israel creating loyalty test, warn lawyers Islamist groups 14. The Rise of Raed Salah 15. Police raid 'Hamas office' in east J'lem Christian Minorities 16. 'No Quarter' for Jerusalem's Armenians 17. Greek Tragedy in Jerusalem Jewish Ultra-Orthodox 18. The Orthodox Jews fighting the Judaization of East Jerusalem 19. Israel pressure to reform ultra-orthodox schools Other Current Issues 20. Jerusalem Day 2010 Figures 21. New campaign promotes internal tourism to Jerusalem 22. Meretz Quits Jerusalem City Council 23. Museum of Tolerance Special Report / Part I: Holes, Holiness and Hollywood 24. Police Kill Palestinian Driver in East Jerusalem 2 Silwan 1. 'Israel's plan to raze E. Jerusalem homes is an obstacle to peace' Haaretz Service, 30/6/2010 http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-s-plan-to-raze-e-jerusalem- homes-is-an-obstacle-to-peace-1.299171 EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton says 'settlements and demolitions of homes are illegal under international law.' Israel's planned demolition of Palestinian homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan is "an obstacle to peace," European Union Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton said Wednesday. The city's plan would raze 22 Palestinian homes and construct a tourism center in their place. An additional 66 homes built without the proper permits would receive approval retroactively. The tourism center for the area, which is called Al Bustan in Arabic and Gan Hamelekh (King's Garden) in Hebrew, is to include restaurants and boutique hotels. The city said it would help residents of the 22 homes due for demolition to move to other areas of Silwan. The French news agency AFP quoted Ashton Wednesday as saying that "'settlements and the demolition of homes are illegal under international law, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make a two-state solution impossible." Ashton added that the European Union has never recognized Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem, saying that "if there is to be genuine peace, a way must be found through negotiations to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states." According to AFP, Ashton urged Israel "to refrain from measures which may undermine the ongoing proximity talks" between Israel and the Palestinians, where mediators shuttle between the two parties. "These talks enjoy our full support and the parties need to engage seriously in these negotiations." Silwan is part of the so-called Holy Basin, just outside the walls of Jerusalem's famed Old City, and is believed to be the site of ancient Jerusalem during the time of the biblical kings David and Solomon. 3 2. Crunchtime for Silwan By Abe Hayeem, Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine , 30/06/ 2010 http://www.jnews.org.uk/commentary/crunchtime-for-silwan New clashes between Jewish settlers and Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem this week throw into relief a long running conflict in the holy city. Since Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967, ultra-nationalist settler communities like Elad and Ateret Hacohanim have been infiltrating the heart of Palestinian neighbourhoods like Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah with the intention of creating an “undivided Jewish city”. Maverick mayor Nir Barkat, an ex paratrooper turned businessman, is forging ahead with a programme of house clearances intended to forestall the possibility of a shared capital for the Palestinians and to alter the demography of the city to ensure a Jewish majority. Despite pressure from Washington to halt demolitions and illegal settlement building, Barkat’s most controversial plan got through the first of three stages at a meeting of the Jerusalem Planning Council on June 21, with the world’s media in attendance. The ‘King’s Garden’ plan designed by architect Arieh Rahamimov involves demolishing 89 Palestinian homes in the Al-Bustan area of the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan, home to around 50,000 Palestinians and 70 Jewish families. Silwan residents’ opposition to the plan is backed by Israeli and international NGOs and peace activists. The US State Department reacted to the planning committee decision by saying it “undermines trust fundamental to progress in the proximity talks” The response of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is due to meet President Obama next week, fell far short of all-out disapproval. He said he “hopes that since this project is only in a preliminary stage, that the dialogue can continue with those who have built homes on public land and it will be possible to find an agreed solution in accordance with the law.” 4 Defence Minister Ehud Barak, speaking in Washington last week, simply noted the Jerusalem authorities’ “lack of common sense and sense of timing”. In March 2010 Mayor Barkat presented his plans for Jerusalem to British media, and at Chatham House in London he said, apparently without irony: “The whole world is watching us. This obligates us, Jews and Arabs, to work together, without discrimination, to advance the city’s interests”. Many felt rather that he should have been arrested as a war criminal for his push to Judaise the city under the pretexts of development, biblical archaeology, tourism and business. The 89 Palestinian homes under threat are on a site where settlers claim King David wrote his psalms. ‘King’s Garden’ is intended as part of a ring of park projects around Jerusalem being pursued as a ‘Modern Vision’ for the city. Ir-Amim, the Israeli organisation promoting a ‘viable and equitable’ Jerusalem, described the projected tourist sites as a “Disneyland” in a crowded Palestinian neighbourhood. Excavations during the British Mandate period (1917-1947) revealed tunnels beneath Silwan dating from the Canaanite period 4000 years ago. But now unorthodox and dangerous archaeological techniques, condemned by Israeli experts, are being employed, tunnelling under Silwan’s houses and schools These settler-inspired digs destroy the history of Jerusalem through other, mainly Islamic, eras but retain parts that aim to bolster Israel’s biblical claim to the land. Despite having failed to establish a connection with King David, they have renamed part of Silwan the “City of David” and set up a visitor’s entrance in an expropriated Palestinian house. By extending the Jewish Quarter of East Jerusalem’s Old City into key areas of Silwan and driving Palestinians out of occupied land, the project contravenes Article 53 of the Geneva Convention. Occupants of Palestinian homes targeted for takeover or demolition regularly face intimidation by extreme settler groups like ‘Elad’. These have been given free reign and backing from private and state security police. International pressure has delayed the Al-Bustan demolitions. Now, a pall hangs over the lives of families in Silwan, afraid to lose their homes at any moment. Fakhri Abu Diab, an Al-Bustan resident whose house is scheduled for demolition, says anxiety destroyed the joy of his daughter’s wedding last weekend. For 43 years the Jerusalem authorities have approved not a single development project for Palestinians, who are deprived of many basic rights and have no say in the numerous plans for Jewish-only projects on land expropriated by the State. Orly Noy of Ir-Amim, says that since 1967 the State of Israel has built 50,000 housing units for Israelis in East Jerusalem alone, while in the same period, “it gave 5 Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, whose numbers have since grown from 70,000 to 300,000, a total of only 5,000 building permits”. 1,010 Palestinian housing units were demolished in East Jerusalem over the past decade. Despite its residents paying full taxes, Silwan has seen no improvement to its notoriously inadequate infrastructure and social provision, while the municipality has prioritised plans for more recreational sites for tourists. Inequalities in municipal services are well-documented in Jerusalem, which was intended under the 1947 Israel/Palestine partition plan to be administered under United Nations sovereignty as an international city or “corpus separatum”. Netanyahu, under pressure from President Obama and Hilary Clinton, had ostensibly frozen all settlements and other changes to the status quo, including those in East Jerusalem. Mayor Barkat seems to have decided to go ahead partly as payback for being ordered to evacuate an illegal settler building, the seven storey Beit Yonathan in the heart of Silwan. He claims that “The new plan for Silwan allows for the addition of thousands of housing units for the Arab sector and the resolution of hundreds of construction violations”. But such expansion would be virtually impossible for Palestinians to implement, requiring access roads, parking and sewage infrastructure that simply don’t exist in Silwan. An excellent alternative plan produced by the architect Youssef Jabareen, keeping all the existing homes, and also creating parks, was rejected by Barkat’s municipality. In pursuing Barkat’s biblical fantasy for East Jerusalem Israel seems determined not to accept any limitations on its illegal territorial expansion, or its persecution and hounding of Palestinian residents.