Shady Dealings in Silwan
- Dettagli
- Categoria: Riflessioni
- Pubblicato Martedì, 02 Marzo 2010 07:21
- Scritto da Meron Rapoport
ir amim, May 2009 
Photograph: Ahmad Sub Laban
Israeli policy openly discriminates against the Palestinian residents of Silwan and aims to displace them. This informs the most recent plan by the Jerusalem Municipality to evict the residents of the al-Bustan neighborhood of Silwan and destroy their houses, on grounds of illegal construction, and establish an archaeological park in their place. The goal of this process is to transfer additional land from Palestinian residents to Israeli control, relying on a dubious legal pretext to advance a political agenda.
(...) [D]ue to the lack of town plan schemes in Silwan, most of the Palestinian construction in the area is done without building permits; and legal procedures, fines and demolition orders are pending against many residents. Residents of Silwan say that representatives of the settlers approach them and promise that if they sell their real estate to Jews, the legal procedures against them will be dropped. Senior officials in the Jerusalem Municipality confirmed that settler representatives approached them more than once to find out whether and how they could close illegal construction cases, after the real estate was sold to Jews.
Following is the transcript of a conversation between Asaf Baruchi, the Ateret Cohanim “ operations officer,” and a Palestinian contact person, about buying a property in the “ Yemenite neighborhood” of Silwan. This conversation seems to indicate that a representative of a rightist organization claims to be initiating the opening of files against Palestinians, to use them to apply pressure to sell real estate. Following is an excerpt from the conversation:
Contact: “ The guy [the Palestinian seller] asked if you are willing to get the police and the city off his
back and close his file. He’ s willing to sit and talk.”
Baruchi: “ He has to talk first.”
Contact: “ But can you close his file?”
Baruchi: “ Of course we can... we can close all of his files because we are the ones who opened them.”
Contact: “ You opened them, or the city and the police?”
Baruchi: “ ... it is not exactly that they opened them.”
Contact: “ Is this on Mati’ s word?” [Mati Dan, head of Ateret Cohanim].
Baruchi: “ My word first of all.”
Contact: “ And then Mati.”
Baruchi: “ Yes.” (34)
(...) • The case of “ Plot #44.” This plot is east of the main road of the neighborhood of Wadi Hilweh. For many years the Kara’ in family that lived nearby cultivated the plot and planted it with olive, almond and other trees. When the national park was declared at Silwan in 1974, the plot was included in the boundaries of the park, but the family continued to cultivate it. In 2002, recounted the family’s father, Khaled Kara’ in, people of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority entered the plot with David Be’ eri, and Be’ eri said “ there will be a nice kindergarten here.” A month later all of the trees that Khaled’ s father had planted in the plot were uprooted and the land was leveled. Shortly thereafter several mobile homes were placed on the land, which serve Elad as offices and warehouses. Next to them is a large tent that serves as a synagogue and a space for social functions. Five years later, on December 17, 2007, Elad submitted to the Jerusalem planning committee a town plan scheme, in which the organization asked to build on Plot #44, as well as on the nearby plot, a synagogue, kindergarten classrooms, 10 housing units and underground parking for 100 cars, 52 even though the Israel Nature and Parks Authority’ s law forbids any “ degradation” of a national park, “including... a change of the terrain, including digging, constructing a building or facility,” unless a written permit is received from the authority. We do not know of any permit Elad received from the authority, and if so on what grounds. It should be noted that Plot #44 is adjacent to the Aderet compound, under the private ownership of the Irving Moskowitz Everest Foundation.
The Israel Nature and Parks Authority’ s inspectors are less forgiving towards Palestinians. Thus, in October 2008, when Ahmad Kara’ in built a step out of soil in the area next to his house, so that his old father could reach the olive trees he cultivates, he received a letter signed by Evyatar Cohen, in which he is ordered to remove the dirt step, or else legal proceedings would be taken against him. Other residents of Wadi Hilweh report cases in which Israel Nature and Parks Authority’s inspectors entered their homes in the neighborhood and confiscated birds in cages, claiming they were protected birds; and cases in which Israel Nature and Parks Authority’ s inspectors who find garbage next to Palestinian homes fine them, claiming that they, the Palestinians, are degrading the national park.
(...) Some of the [archaeological]excavations were carried out under residents’ homes in an apparent violation of the law and in a way that caused harm to their property. In January 2008, parts of the road on Wadi Hilweh Street sank; and only then did the residents discover that the excavation in the area, begun by the Israel Antiquities Authority in 2007, went under their homes and the land they owned. The Israel Antiquities Authority refused to provide details about the excavation, or to allow the residents to examine it. Seven local residents filed a petition to the High Court of Justice to stop the work. The day after the petition was submitted, the police arrested five of the petitioners on suspicion of “ damaging the City of David visitor center.” They were released the next day; and to this day no charges have been brought against them. (...)
MEYHUAS HOUSE
Photograph: courtesy of Emek Shaveh organization
THE GOZLAN HOUSE AFTER EXPANSION BY THE SETTLERS
Photograph: courtesy of Emek Shaveh organization
(...) [I]n the last decade, Israel’ s official agencies delegated without tender a huge area of national parks of immense historic and archaeological importance to a private organization from the heart of the settlement movement, which is rewriting the historical memory of those sites from a pronounced political perspective. The tours held at the City of David and the Holy Basin are meant to make visitors feel “ the Jerusalem of the days of the Temple... that it all began here...” At the same time, as David Be’ eri explained during an advertising campaign to encourage visits to the City of David: “ The goal of the campaign is for the public to know that the City of David is only 200 meters from the Old City and therefore in any negotiations it must remain in Israel’ s hands... We must not give it up.” (...)
On the way to Disneyland: the future Silwan as an archaeological amusement park
The continuing expropriation of the geographical space and historic memory of Silwan in favor of Jewish Jerusalem is about to reach a new record in the form of Town Plan Scheme 11555, deposited with the local building and planning committee at the end of 2007, and referring to 548 dunams of the area of Silwan, including the eastern slopes of the Wadi Hilweh/City of David Hillside, and most of the al-Bustan neighborhood. This plan stands at the center of a development project promoted by the Jerusalem Municipality and several government ministries, regarding the areas surrounding the Old City from its three Palestinian sides.
Town Plan Scheme 11555, developed by the Municipality of Jerusalem and planned by the office of architect Moshe Safdie, intends to transform the whole area of the City of David/Wadi Hilweh from a Palestinian neighborhood into an Israeli and Jewish archaeological park, while building 100,000 m2. Implementing the plan requires destroying the neighborhood of al-Bustan (the municipality says 21-22 houses will remain standing in it after the demolition), evicting more than one thousand of its residents and expropriating very large areas from the Palestinians. (...)
Among the main features mentioned in the plan: on the ruins of al-Bustan, an archaeological garden in the spirit of the Second Temple will be built; a promenade will be built from Mount Zion to Dung Gate; a cable car connecting the City of David to the Mount of Olives or between the City of David and Armon HaNatsiv; and a tunnel (“ a three-dimensional compound,” in the words of the plan) will be dug, that will expose the city’ s drainage system from Herod’ s time. That tunnel will begin at Siloam Pool, ascend under the residents’ homes up to the Givati parking lot, run under the Dung Gate and exit at the archaeological park in the southern Western Wall, a few meters from the Temple Mount and only a few dozen meters from the opening of the Western Wall Tunnel (the “ Hasemonean Tunnel” ). The Western Wall Tunnel itself is also undergoing a significant expansion, and was recently connected by tunnels to a synagogue on al-Wad Street (HaGay) in the Muslim quarter, on the way to which it runs under the homes of Palestinian residents of the High Court of Justice, after the Palestinian residents appealed against it. However, visitors. This plan is being carried out in cooperation with the East Jerusalem Development Authority, and even though the excavation of the tunnel has not yet been approved by any official planning body, already two years ago the Israel Antiquities Authority began the work to excavate it, underwritten by Elad. The excavation stopped on an order to the site in March 2009 saw work going on there. The political significance of this tunnel is tremendous.
(...) The plans indicate the existence of a super-plan of an Israeli takeover of the Old City basin, massive expropriation of private and public land from the Palestinians and its transformation into an Israeli-Jewish area with extensive building for housing and commerce, parks, transportation systems and so on. On the local level this plan will infinitely expand the friction in the interface between Jews and Palestinians and greatly elevate the level of animosity between the two communities - the one, dispossessed from its houses and land, and the other encroaching on them. But the story does not end above ground: the planned tunnel, which according to Town Plan Scheme 11555 will begin at Siloam Pool and end in the heart of the Old City under Temple Mount, has real potential for a conflagration.
Strategically, implementation of this policy will lead to the encircling of the Temple Mount from its three Palestinian sides and the assimilation of the Old City into a continuity of Jewish settlement that will be connected to West Jerusalem; and this strip of land will be connected to the Jewish settlement blocs in the north to Mount Scopus and from there to the E-1 bloc (...).
Politically, since the Temple Mount and the Holy Basin are the matters that have stood and will stand at the center of any negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, this process will make it very difficult in the future to reach a compromise on Jerusalem, and actually undermines the chances of successful negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Furthermore, laying out a Jewish strip of territory from north to south in this area will create pressure eastward on the Palestinian population that will find itself trapped between a rock (the Jewish settlement strip in the Old City basin) and a hard place (the separation barrier and settlement blocs in the East).
(...) [S]ignificant national assets were handed without tender to settler organizations. Some of them were expropriated from their Palestinian owners in ways the court declared illegitimate and devoid of legal basis, and given to the settler organizations without tender and for a token fee. The Israel Antiquities Authority carries out excavations for the settler organizations, defined as “ salvage excavations” at sites where they do not have construction permits, sometimes under Palestinian homes without their agreement. All of the excavations carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority for the settler organizations, except one, lack excavation licenses and scientific oversight by the Archaeological Council, and therefore are not committed to exposing their findings. The Silwan settlement enjoys private security costing the State of Israel millions of shekels a year. The Jerusalem Municipality leads an open policy of discrimination against the Palestinians and in favor of the Jewish settlers; the Israel Police does not investigate complaints of document forgery by settlers; and a police officer who was party to writing an agreement to silence a Palestinian who wished to testify against the settlers remains in his position.
(...) [O]ne can understand the words of Doron Spillman, Elad’ s director of development, who says candidly: “ This is a government project... we are not an official government organization [but] we work here in close conjunction with government agencies. All of these stones, all of these sidewalks, were built in conjunction of two parties. One is government subsidy and the other is private subsidy... we are almost a branch of the government of Israel [but] without getting buried under government bureaucracy.”
( 34)
Phone call between contact man and Baruchi, May 2006.
http://www.ir-amim.org.il/Eng/_Uploads/dbsAttachedFiles/Silwanreporteng.pdf