[ad_1]
Israel is expected to open a Jewish Heritage Center in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem. A ceremony will be held on the site under heavy security surveillance on Wednesday to mark the launch of the project.
Over the past two decades, the pro-colonial organization Elad has been working to Judaize the neighborhood by buying homes from Arabs and complaining against them, sometimes with the help of the Israeli government.
>> Haaretz Editorial: Silwan, a model of oppression
The new center, which will be built at a cost of 4.5 million shekels ($ 1.23 million), will be housed in an old synagogue near the colony of Beit Yehonathan in what is known as the " Yemeni village "- an established neighborhood in Silwan by Yemeni immigrants in the late 19th century and abandoned before the establishment of Israel following the violence in the period of the British Mandate, especially the events of 1929 and the Arab revolt of 1936.
A Palestinian family was expelled from the building in which the center will open its doors in 2015, after it was determined in court proceedings that they were squatting in a sacred property that had belonged to a Jewish Yemeni religious body decades ago.
The settlers entered the building after the expulsion of the Abu Naab family. There were rumors at the time in the neighborhood that Palestinian residents were voluntarily evacuating the house in exchange for monetary compensation.
The state plans to invest millions of shekels to turn the place into a heritage center of the "Tamar Aliyah", the immigration of Yemeni Jews to Israel in 1881 The Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs will invest 3 million shekels and the Ministry of Culture and Sports will invest 1.5 million shekels.
The Silwan district has become a symbol of the Palestinian struggle in East Jerusalem. In December 2017, more than 100 residents filed an application with the Supreme Court to prevent Ateret Cohanim from evicting them from their homes. Their petition attacks the Guardian General of the Ministry of Justice, who transferred 17 years ago a plot of about five dunams, in which live hundreds of Palestinians, to control the members of the settlers' organization without informing Palestinian residents.
The Israeli High Court of Justice ordered the office of the general administrator of the state in June to explain its decision to transfer land in the Batan al-Hawa district of Silwan, inhabited by some 700 Palestinians , to the right organization Ateret Cohanim.
The court order came in response to a petition submitted by more than 100 residents of the East Jerusalem area, who claim that the decision to transfer the property 17 years ago was illegal. Since then settlers have moved in and many Palestinian residents have been deported.
The case concerns 5.5 dunums (1.4 acres) of land in the Silwan district, where hundreds of Palestinians still live. The act was issued to the Benvenisti Trust, established about 120 years ago to provide housing for Jews who immigrated to Palestine from Yemen. But for 17 years, trust has been controlled by Ateret Cohanim, a non-profit right-wing group that encourages Jews to move to Palestinian-majority neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.
The main issue raised in the petition concerns whether the first Ottoman-era trust covered the administration of the lands in question or buildings erected thereon, including a alone had been demolished in the 1940s. Applicants seeking to put an end to deportation claim that the original trust and the recent transfer of the deed of property concern the buildings but not the land itself. same, based on the Ottoman law. Palestinians claim that the authority of the trust should be canceled and the evacuation halted because trust was covering structures that no longer exist – not the land.
[ad_2]
Source link
