SALON

Amy Teibel

Monday, Jun 21, 2010 1:02 PM UTC

Jerusalem revives plan to raze Palestinian homes

Jerusalem pushes forward with a plan to knock down 22 Palestinian homes to make way for an Israeli tourist center

By

Topics:

Jerusalem’s mayor pressed ahead Monday with a plan to raze 22 Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem to make room for an Israeli tourist center, a decision that could stir new tensions in the divided city and put Israel in conflict with the Obama administration.

Back in March, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had pressured Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat to hold up the plan so authorities could consult with Palestinians who would lose their homes — a delay that appeared to be aimed at fending off criticism from the U.S.

“Now, after fine-tuning the plan and seeking more cooperation with the residents as far as their needs and improving the quality of their lives, the municipality is ready to submit the plans for the first stage of approval,” Barkat’s spokesman, Stephan Miller.

Barkat, who opposes sharing Jerusalem with the Palestinians, asked the municipal planning committee to give preliminary approval to the plan. However final approval, which would require an Interior Ministry green light, could take many months.

Jerusalem is the most divisive issue between Israelis and Palestinians. Israel annexed east Jerusalem after capturing it from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war and nearly 200,000 Jews have moved there since, living alongside 250,000 Palestinians in an uneasy coexistence. Palestinians hope to build the capital of a future state in east Jerusalem and see any Israeli construction there as undercutting their claims to the land.

The international community does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over east Jerusalem and the U.S. wants Israel to freeze all Jewish settlement in Palestinian areas, including east Jerusalem, to facilitate Mideast peace talks. It also recently demanded that Israel lift its three-year old blockade of the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel strained relations with the U.S. in March when it announced plans for additional construction in east Jerusalem as Vice President Joe Biden was preparing to have dinner with Netanyahu.

The plan calls for the construction of shops, restaurants, art galleries and a large community center on the site where some say the biblical King David wrote his psalms. The 22 displaced families would be allowed to build homes elsewhere in the neighborhood, though it is not clear who would pay for them.

Activists who want to block all demolitions issued a statement saying the plan “comes in the general context of (the) fast-track Judaization” of east Jerusalem. It pre-empts “the possibility of Jerusalem ever being a shared city, or indeed capital of a Palestinian state,” the statement said. “This in itself precludes peace.”

The U.S. Embassy in Israel had no comment.

The prime minister’s office said Netanyahu “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.”

Barkat had agreed in March to Netanyahu’s request for delay to consult Palestinian residents before breaking ground. Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes has in the past provoked harsh reaction from the United States, and no houses have been razed since October.

Although Israel claims it is simply enforcing the law by knocking down illegally built structures, many of the unauthorized homes have gone up because Palestinians have a hard time obtaining construction permits in east Jerusalem.

Barkat says the plan gives a much-needed facelift to Jerusalem’s decaying al-Bustan neighborhood, which Israel calls Gan Hamelech, or the King’s Garden.

The contested site is a section of a larger neighborhood called Silwan, which is home to some 50,000 Palestinians and 70 Jewish families. Demolitions elsewhere in Silwan have made the neighborhood a hub of tension between Palestinians and Jews.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 18 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
FBI reportedly joins Bachmann campaign finance probe
228 points229 points | 14 comments
vote
Paul Krugman’s right: Austerity kills. "In an economy where we’re all in the same boat, one person’s spending is another person’s income. So when the government cuts spending, it reduces people’s income, leading to less business, more unemployment, and a vicious spiral of slowing down the economy."
222 points223 points | 177 comments
vote
Jon Karl makes things worse: He regrets “inaccurate” Benghazi email but says his story based on it “still entirely stands.” Really. ABC News?
205 points206 points | 30 comments
vote
“Jodorowsky’s Dune”: The sci-fi classic that never was.
80 points81 points | 16 comments
vote
Austerity Kills: Brian McArdle, a 57-year-old man who had had two strokes and could barely walk, was found "fit for work" by a government subcontractor, and had his benefits stopped. He died the next day.
60 points61 points | 3 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations