RAMALLAH, West Bank, 1 February 2008 — The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions said that the rightist Jewish association Yemin Yehuda has begun building 200 settling units in the heart of East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. In the process, the organization intends to demolish the homes of dozens of Palestinian families who live there.
The Sheikh Jarrah Arab neighborhood is in a strategic location: If Yemin Yehuda completes its plan and builds Shimon Hatzaddik compound, it will cut the old city off from the Palestinian neighborhoods in northern Jerusalem.
Benny Elon, Knesset member of the National Religious Party who supports building the new neighborhood, says it is designed to create a Jewish continuum surrounding the old city, where there currently is a massive Palestinian majority.
Elon says this can be done by declaring open areas to be national parks and placing state property back-to-back with lands under Jewish ownership.
“Building Jewish neighborhoods next to open areas will prevent invasion and illegal construction by Palestinians who live near the old city,” says Elon.
The new settling neighborhood is slated to cover 18 dunams next to the tomb of Shimon Hatzaddik. According to the plan submitted to the Jerusalem municipal planning commission, Palestinian buildings must be demolished to make room for 200 housing units.
The plan states that open areas will become residential, and that the construction density in the area will be increased to include five— and six-story buildings, which will require changing the Municipal Construction Plan.
Deputy Mayor Yehoshua Pollack, who heads the local commission, says he is not familiar with the new plan, but that he seeks to “advance any construction plan, be it by Jews or Arabs.”
Pollack noted that contrary to reports that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had ordered a halt to construction in East Jerusalem, the municipality has not been informed of any such restrictions.
In 2004, Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski sought Housing Ministry permission to build a Jewish neighborhood adjacent to the Simon Hatzaddik tomb, “in order to strengthen the connection between the Jewish neighborhoods” in East Jerusalem.
Currently, about 40 Palestinian families live in the area, which is very close to the American Colony Hotel, one of the most important centers of Palestinian and international activity in East Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, the American Jewish millionaire Irving Moskowitz has already purchased the nearby Shepherd’s Hotel, and wants to build several dozen housing units there for Jews.
Furthermore, about two months ago, the Israel Lands Administration had leased the Ateret Cohanim organization, which promotes the settlement of Jews in and around the old city of Jerusalem, a large Palestinian area known as Karm Al-Mufti, opposite Shepherd’s Hotel.
Karm Al-Mufti is named for its former owner, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem and the leader of 1936 revolution. According to Israeli and Jordanian documents, in the 1960s it was purchased by the Arab Hotels Company of East Jerusalem.
