The U.S.-Israeli Dispute over Building in Jerusalem: The Sheikh Jarrah-Shimon HaTzadik Neighborhood Part II

 

by Nadav Shragai

 

2^nd part of 2

 

Private Jewish Activity in the Sheikh Jarrah-Shimon HaTzadik Area Since the Six-Day War

 

Although a Jewish institutional presence has been established in the area in the form of Israeli governmental offices and services, Jewish groups have sought to establish a residential presence as well. This is being done through property and land acquisitions, and by judicial means. To date, this activity has achieved a residential presence of no more than ten families who are living in a small part of the Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood from which Jews had been evicted in 1948.

 

There are dozens of pending court cases and legal proceedings seeking to remove Arab tenants on the grounds that they have not been paying rent to the rightful owners - the Committee of the Sephardic Community and the Ashkenazi Assembly of Israel, who purchased the land in the second part of the nineteenth century. In some of these cases, eviction notices have been issued, although the Israel Police has delayed the actual evictions due to international pressure.(21)

 

Private Jewish activity in this area focuses on several points: the el-Ma'amuniya school, which after prolonged discussions eventually became the offices of the Israel Ministry of Interior; the Nahlat Shimon neighborhood, whose Jewish residents were driven out in 1948 and where Jews are now seeking to purchase property from Arab residents; the Mufti's Vineyard (expropriated in 1969), which the Israel Lands Administration has handed over to Jewish custody with authorization for agricultural activity; and the Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood north of the American Colony Hotel.

 

After 1967, control over Jewish-owned property in the Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood that had been seized by Arabs was transferred from the Jordanian Custodian of Enemy Property to the Israeli Custodian of Absentee Property. In 1972 the Israeli Custodian released the land back to its owners (the Committee of the Sephardic Community and the Ashkenazi Assembly of Israel). In 1988 the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the 28 Arab families living on the premises enjoy the status of "Protected Residents," but that the ownership of the land belongs to the two Jewish organizations.

 

Ten years later, in 1998, Jews entered deserted houses in the neighborhood. At the same time, a slow process of evicting Arab families who apparently refused to pay rent to the two Jewish organizations was begun. The Jewish groups involved in the area presented a power of attorney from former Knesset Member Yehezkel Zackay (Labor) and from the heads of the Sephardic Committee permitting them to remain on the site and to rebuild it. Zackay explained that the Arabs there had treated the premises as if it were their own private property, building without authorization, entering houses which were not theirs, and had even tried to destroy the abandoned synagogue located in the middle of the neighborhood. Ehud Olmert, then mayor of Jerusalem, assisted the Jewish activity from behind the scenes. Members of the Shas Sephardic religious political party also sanctioned the Jewish activity. A son of Shas leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef began giving lessons at the small, newly built yeshiva that had begun to operate in the abandoned synagogue.

 

In the months that followed, several Arab families were evicted from the neighborhood and were replaced by seven Jewish families. Eviction notices have been issued for dozens of other Arab families in the area, but they have not been implemented due to international pressure.

 

An overall plan for the rehabilitation of the Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood that had been taken over by the Arabs in 1948 has been filed with the Jerusalem Municipality Planning Committee. 

 

 

The Shepherd Hotel Compound(22)

 

The Shepherd Hotel lies just to the east of the British Consulate in eastern Jerusalem, and British diplomats were instrumental in inflaming the controversy between the U.S. and Israel over the future of the property. The building, originally built by the Grand Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was confiscated by the British Mandatory Government after it deported him in the 1930s and was made into a British military outpost. The Jordanians took possession of the structure after 1948 and expanded it. 

 

After the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel took over the compound, no one from the Husseini family still lived there, and it had been rented by two Christian brothers. At the beginning of the 1970s, Israel revoked the right of the Husseini family's representative to charge the brothers rent and transfer the money to the family abroad. The brothers received the status of protected tenants and paid rent to the Israeli Executor of Absentee Property. In the mid-1980s, the brothers' widows sold the hotel to a Swiss company backed by Jewish groups.

 

Two years later, the compound was bought by American businessman Irving Moskowitz, who has worked for years to redeem property in Jerusalem for Jewish settlement. He leased the hotel to the state, and in the 1990s Israeli Border Police units were stationed there. In recent years the building has stood empty and, using the power of attorney of the owners, on July 2, 2009, the Jerusalem Municipality approved a plan to build 20 housing units at the site and at the same time to preserve part of the compound. A more ambitious plan to build 122 units has been prepared but has not yet been approved.

 

 

The Growth of Mixed Neighborhoods in Jerusalem

 

The dispute between the U.S. and Israel over 20 housing units in Sheikh Jarrah has turned the spotlight on the Sheikh Jarrah-Shimon HaTzadik-Mt. Scopus area, which has long been home to a mix of populations and where Jews and Arabs live side by side. However, parallel Arab migration to Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem has received no similar attention.

 

In Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem such as Armon HaNatziv, Neve Yaakov, Tzameret HaBira, and Pisgat Zeev, the fringes of the neighborhoods have many Palestinian Arab residents, either through purchase or rental of apartments. In some of the buildings along Rehov HaHavatzelet in the center of the city, a similar change is taking place. Jews and Arabs also live together in the neighborhood of Abu Tor, and there are several streets in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, such as Rehov HaGai, where a similar situation is gradually developing. In short, as certain parts of eastern Jerusalem have become ethnically diverse, it has become impossible to characterize it as a wholly Palestinian area that can easily be split off from the rest of Jerusalem.

 

 

Foreign Investment in Jerusalem: Both Jewish and Arab

 

Jews from abroad are not the only ones buying property in Jerusalem. Munib al-Masri, a Palestinian millionaire from Nablus who holds American citizenship, is planning to purchase property 900 meters from the Teddy Kollek Stadium, not far from Jerusalem's Malha shopping mall. His investment company is planning to build 150 housing units next to Beit Safafa, according to company chairman Samir Halayla. Until 1967, Beit Safafa was an Arab village south of Jerusalem divided between Israel and Jordan. After the war it became an area where Jews and Arabs lived together, generally as good neighbors.

 

The Gulf States, the PLO, and Palestinian millionaires such as al-Masri and the late Abd al-Majid Shuman have all invested funds to purchase property and support construction for Palestinian Arabs. The Jerusalem Treasury Fund affiliated with the Jerusalem Committee headed by King Hassan of Morocco is also active. The Jerusalem Foundation for Development and Investment was founded in Jordan, and there are several similar funds and foundations in Saudi Arabia.(23) Foreign donations from Qatar were also involved in the construction of 58 housing units recently completed in Beit Hanina under the auspices of the Arab teachers' association.

 

On July 19, 2009, Yuval Diskin, head of the Israel Security Agency, reported to the Israeli government on the extensive efforts of the Palestinian Authority and its security apparatuses to prevent Palestinian land from being sold to Jews, especially in eastern Jerusalem.

 

Regardless of these ongoing struggles, the State of Israel does not limit or forbid the purchase or sale of property or land within Jerusalem, which is under Israeli law, whether the individuals involved are Jews or Arabs.

 

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Notes

 

1. Eastern Jerusalem refers to the areas annexed to the east, north and south of the city that were not under Israeli control prior to the Six-Day War in 1967. For further information, see Nadav Shragai, Jerusalem: The Dangers of Division (Jerusalem Canter for Public Affairs, 2008), p. 12 (Hebrew).

 

2. For the arguments on which Israel bases its position, see Dore Gold, "The Diplomatic Battle for Jerusalem," Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2001, pp. 5-10 (Hebrew).

 

3. Shragai, pp. 49-53.

 

4. Information based on conversations with sources within the Israeli government.

 

5. Ian Kelley, U.S. Department of State, "Daily Press Briefing," June 22, 2009, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2009/125229.htm.

 

6. Nadav Shragai, "Simon HaTzadik's New Neighbor," Ha'aretz, April 26, 1999 (Hebrew); conversations with people who were evicted that year. See articles in Ha'aretz about population issues and history during the relevant years.

 

7. Mishnah Avot, 1:2. See exigesis.

 

8. Babylonian Talmud, Tract Yomah, 69a.

 

9. Mishnah Avot, 1:2.  

 

10. Shmuel Shamir, in an article about the property of the Sephardic community (Bamaarekhet, August 1968, Hebrew), and A. Yaari, in Shluhi Eretz Israel, enlarged on the history of the purchase.

 

11. For further information, see Mordechai Gilat, Mt. Scopus (Smadar Publishers, 1969) (Hebrew).

 

12. For further information, see "The University," publication of Hebrew University, the 50th anniversary volume, V. 21, 1975 (Hebrew).

 

13. For further information, see Yona Cohen, Gershon the Wise from Nahlat Shimon, (Reuven Maas, 1968) (Hebrew).

 

14. For further information about al-Husseini and his support for the Nazis, see Haviv Cnaan, "Who Is Haj Amin al-Husseini?," which appeared in Ha'aretz in March 1970 and was reissued by the information services of the Prime Minister's Office.

 

15. For further information, see Gilat, and a summary in Amnon Ramon, ed., The Lexicon of Contemporary Jerusalem (Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 2003), p. 235.

 

16. Meron Benvenisti, Jerusalem, the Torn City, (Weinfeld and Nicholson, 1972), pp. 35-41.

 

17. David Kroyanker, Jerusalem, the Struggle for the Structure and Face of the City (Zmora Bitan and Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 1988), p. 58 (Hebrew).

 

18. Ibid.

 

19. Benvenisti, p. 290.

 

20. Shmuel Berkowitz, How Awesome Is This Place (Carta, 2006), p. 73 (Hebrew).

 

21. The information on this matter comes from conversations with Jewish activists who resettle Jews in the Shimon HaTzadik area, from visiting the neighborhood, and from following ongoing court cases on this matter.

 

22. Danny Rubenstein, "As Long as Nothing Bothers the Hyatt," Ha'aretz, November 18, 1991; Danny Rubenstein, "The Palestinian Economy: a Hotel at the Crossroads," Calcalist, July 20, 2009; personal knowledge of the area.

 

23. For further information, see Nadav Shragai, "Jerusalem Is the Solution, Not the Problem," in His Honor the Prime Minister Jerusalem, Moshe Amirav, ed. (Carmel, 2005), p. 57 (Hebrew) (based on Israeli defense documents).

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Nadav Shragai is the author of Jerusalem: The Dangers of Division - An Alternative to Separation from the Arab Neighborhoods (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2008); At the Crossroads, the Story of the Tomb of Rachel (Jerusalem Studies, 2005); and The Mount of Contention, the Struggle for the Temple Mount, Jews and Muslims, Religion and Politics since 1967 (Keter, 1995). He has been writing for the Israeli daily newspaper Ha'aretz since 1983.

 

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

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