Plans deferred for new Jewish building in Silwan after ‘political pressure’

The Jerusalem municipality postponed Wednesday a decision to allow new homes for Jews to be built in the flashpoint East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, following reported intervention by government officials worried the project could spark angry reactions.

Following a heated debate between municipal councilors, the city’s Planning and Building Committee decided to delay by two weeks a ruling on a request for planning permission to construct a new three-story building in the heart of the overwhelmingly Palestinian neighborhood.

The plot, which the state sold to Jewish settlers in 2005 via the Justice Ministry’s custodian general, is located in the Batan Al Hawa area if Silwan opposite the seven-story Beit Yonatan. Beit Yonatan was built without permits in 2002, and 11 Jewish families moved in two years later.

Despite orders by the courts and by then-attorney general Yehuda Weinstein to evacuate and seal the building, 10 families still live there, according to the Haaretz newspaper. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat has supported the Jewish residents’ right to inhabit the building.

But government officials have been trying to sink the plans and have made efforts in recent days to persuade municipal councilors to oppose planning permission, according to Army Radio.

Deputy Mayor Dov Kalmanovich of the right-wing Jewish Home faction, who supported the new housing, said the proposal would have passed had it not been for “political pressure from beyond Jerusalem.”

“This was a political and not a professional decision. The committee did not carry out a professional assessment and as someone who identifies with the national camp, I am embarrassed that we have preventing building in Jerusalem,” Kalmanovich said in a statement.

Eldad Rabinowicz, the lawyer who submitted the planning request on behalf of a company named Maliach 73, slammed the decision as racist toward Jews.

“We are shocked at the discrimination that the city of Jerusalem has carried out today toward Jews. It is unbelievable that for narrow political reasons legal building has been prevented in the capital city.”

The request for planning approval comes ahead of the beginning of the month-long Muslim festival of Ramadan next Monday, and appears to run against efforts to calm tensions that have fueled months of Palestinian attacks. Critics claim the land was sold to the Jewish Ateret Cohanim activist group at an artificially low price, and without a proper tender process.

A building in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan that was taken over by Jews who claim that it originally belonged to Jewish Yemenite immigrants (Peace Now)

The anti-settlement Peace Now organization said Tuesday that the land in the area was sold to Ateret Cohanim by the custodian general without any tender, together with three additional parcels in the neighborhood. The pretext for selling the land was the fact that the group already owned two other parcels in Batan Al-Hawa that the custodian general released to it in September 2002, Peace Now said in a statement.

“While Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Liberman just backed the two-state solution, on the ground, they are supporting actions that are making a future compromise much more difficult,” the statement said. “By approving the construction on the eve of Ramadan, Netanyahu and Liberman risk igniting the region and compromising Israelis’ security for the benefit of extreme settlers.”

Silwan has seen rising tensions in recent years as dozens of Jews have moved into homes in the mostly Arab neighborhood.

Before the Arab riots of 1938, Silwan — then known as Harat al-Yaman — was mainly Jewish. The riots forced the Jews to leave.

Organizations such as Ateret Cohanim are dedicated to recreating a Jewish presence in Arab East Jerusalem, especially close to the City of David, in neighborhoods such as Silwan.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.