A suspension bridge, a half-mile zip line, and plans for a cable car traversing the Old City are turning Jerusalem into a Jewish Biblical theme park at the expense of its Palestinian residents and multi-cultural history.
A new report from Emek Shaveh shows how Israeli settlers and the government use archeological projects to advance the annexation of Palestinian land.
Church leaders in Jerusalem have expressed their “gravest concern and unequivocal objection” to an Israeli plan to extend the Jerusalem Walls National Park to include the Mount of Olives, one of Christianity’s holiest sites.
Over the past three decades, Israel’s main effort to “Judaize” the “mixed cities” inside Israel has been waged through a war of attrition. This has included moving religious settlers into Palestinian communities, as well as using tourism and archeological preservation to take over land. The coexistence model in Israel’s “mixed cities” was always an illusion, and one that the recent protests finally served to smash.
The Jewish National Fund is a linchpin of the system that enforces superior rights for Jews over Palestinians, whether inside Israel or in the occupied territory. A recent JNF decision to start publicly funding projects in the West Bank just makes that role more clear. Now the question becomes — will its international supporters stand by the organization?
Israeli police forced out the Siyam family from their home in the heart of occupied East Jerusalem last week, the final chapter in their 25-year legal battle against a powerful settler organisation. The family’s defeat represented much more than just another eviction. It was intended to land a crushing blow against the hopes of some 20,000 Palestinians living in the shadow of the Old City walls and Al Aqsa mosque.