Israel To Demolish 88 Palestinian Homes And Turn 1500 More Palestinians Homeless To Build Tourist Theme Park!
88 Palestinian famlies in Silwan’s crowded Bustan neighbourhood have been served with eviction orders to make way for an archaeological park and tourist site – or what one of the plan’s opponents, the Israeli lawyer Daniel Seidemann, calls “something with the trappings of a Jewish evangelical theme park of the religious-nationalist right … an ersatz biblical village.”
This is no mere local zoning row. The largest planned demolition operation in Jerusalem since the Six Day War in 1967, it would trigger the eviction of 1,500 residents in what Palestinian officials say amounts to ethnic cleansing.
The project by the government, Jerusalem’s mayor, Nir Barkat, and the settler organisations has become a potential flashpoint and the most imminent test of whether Arab East Jerusalem can ever become the capital of a future Palestinian state or remain entrenched in Israel, as the Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu says he wants it to be.
The Jerusalem municipality says most of the houses were built without permits, like Mr Qafishi’s, although it has accepted the £585 council tax he has paid annually for the past 15 years. A spokesman for Mr Barkat said that “illegal building is illegal wherever it is.”
But Mr Seidemann points out that while Israelis simply apply for a building permit, Palestinians have to undergo the “Sisyphean” process of submitting a detailed town planning scheme, only 125 of which were granted across all of East Jerusalem last year.
-Full Story at The Independent
