Israeli City Committee Approves Plan to Raze 22 Arab Homes in Jerusalem
A Jerusalem committee granted initial approval for a development plan that calls for razing 22 homes in an Arab neighborhood that the municipality says were built illegally.
The city plans to turn the area of the Silwan district into a tourist park that will include souvenir shops and restaurants. Mayor Nir Barkat is trying to raise funds abroad to help residents whose homes will be demolished to rebuild elsewhere in Silwan, Barkat’s spokesman, Stephan Miller, said today.
Fahri Abu Diab, chairman of the area’s residents’ committee, called today’s decision “a declaration of war” that undermined the principle of coexistence in the city.
Israeli construction plans led to one of the sharpest disagreements with the U.S. in years when, during a March visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, an Interior Ministry committee approved construction of 1,600 Jewish homes in east Jerusalem. Today’s approval comes two weeks before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with President Barack Obama in Washington.
The plans approved in March delayed the launch of U.S.- brokered indirect Israeli-Palestinian peace talks by two months and drew criticism from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who expressed “dismay and disappointment” over the decision.
Palestinian State
Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East War and later annexed it in a move never internationally recognized. Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.
The city committee will meet twice to further discuss the plan before it goes for further approval by the Interior Ministry’s district planning panel, Miller said. Sixty-six of the original 88 homes in the area that were proposed for demolition will be given legal status instead, he said.
About 31,000 people live in Silwan, 700 in the area slated for the park, according to city documents.
Netanyahu said in an e-mailed statement today that the plan was only in preliminary stages and he hoped the sides “would be able to agree on a solution for those who built illegally in public areas.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Gwen Ackerman in Jerusalem at gackerman@bloomberg.net.
Rate this Page