Planned construction encroaches on Temple Mount and Western Wall
April 16, 2014
In the shadow of the crisis in negotiations with the Palestinians, and at the height of the storm about the conviction of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a dramatic decision was made in Jerusalem. This decision could bring about the collapse of the diplomatic process that’s hanging by a thread. The decision made Thursday, March 27, by Jerusalem’s District Planning and Building Committee, makes the tender published several days later for the construction of 708 housing units in the city’s Gilo neighborhood look like a confidence-building measure.
The committee gave a settlers’ organization permission to erect a grandiose edifice in the upper part of the Arab Silwan neighborhood, adjacent to the walls of the Old City — in the heart of one of the most explosive sites in the world. A narrow road is the only dividing line between the complex, designed to serve as a “visitor center” for the El’ad Association and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and the Temple Mount, or Haram al-Sharif. Despite the fact that since the days of the British mandate, through the zoning plans drawn up under Israeli rule, the city’s planning principles forbade new construction within 75 meters (250 feet) of the wall, the committee approved a massive, tall building within 20 meters (65 feet) of the wall.
he building to be erected a stone’s throw away from the Western Wall would stand seven stories high. The ground floor would be spread out over 16,600 square meters (4 acres), three times the area in the original plan submitted some four years ago. As far as the Palestinians and the entire Muslim world are concerned, the erection of this building would be tantamount to sticking a Star of David on top of a mosque. Unlike organizations that approach the idea of erecting the third temple, El’ad has proven over the years that it does more than talking. Nothing stands in its the way of carrying out the plan to turn the Holy Basin into the central branch of HaBayit HaYehudi party (literally, “The Jewish Home”).
snip*Putting up grandiose buildings in the eye of the storm, and populating East Jerusalem with Jewish rabbinical colleges' students — all with full and official permission — are part of the city’s “Hebronization.” Just as in the “City Of the Patriarchs,” a government comes and a government goes, and settlers conquer another lot in an Arab neighborhood. A peace initiative is born, a peace initiative dies, and the right-wing activists laugh all the way to the bank account of another generous American donor. The “poof” (remark before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 8) uttered by US Secretary of State John Kerry was no more than a slight wisp of air tickling their ears.
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/04/jerusalem-temple-mount-sheikh-jarrah-silwan-gilo-kerry.html#ixzz2z5Ie6K9g
