JERUSALEM: Arabs complain over cancelled evacuation order against Jewish building

Record ID: 755801

  • Title: JERUSALEM: Arabs complain over cancelled evacuation order against Jewish building
  • Date: 10th February 2010
  • Summary: PALESTINIAN WOMAN AND CHILDREN STANDING AT DOOR
  • Embargoed: 25th February 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA1Y14SNIIISE5CMNO1TY1MO6L
  • Story Text: The Jerusalem Municipality on Monday (February 8) cancelled the distribution of an evacuation order for a controversial building erected by nationalist Jews in the heart of Silwan, an Arab neighbourhood in east Jerusalem.
    The decision to suspend the order against the building, called "Beit Yonatan," has angered Arab residents of the neighbourhood who say there are double standards when dealing with illegally built structures depending on whether it benefits Arabs or Jews.
    The municipality was not immediately available to comment on the decision to cancel distributing the orders.
    Earlier in the week, the Jerusalem Municipality headed by Mayor Nir Barkat had said that it they will seal Beit Yonatan and demolish all illegal structures.
    Barkat said he would execute the demolition orders despite being personally against it, and that he would uphold the decision made by Jerusalem City Council.
    Silwan residents say the Jewish building received a more lenient evacuation order rather than the demolition orders which Palestinian homes receive. They say it received further preferential treatment when the evacuation order was suspended.
    Fakhri Abu Diab, a member of an Arab committee set up to defend Silwan territory, said the Jewish building was also expropriated from Palestinians illegally.
    "What is strange is that when it comes to Palestinians, demolition orders are handed out randomly. This building was built without a permit and was expropriated through forgery. This building has a house next to it, approximately 112 square meters, whereas this building (the Jewish building) is made up of multiple storeys. It (the Palestinian building) has a demolition order pending against it, and the Jewish building has an evacuation order against it. Silwan, of course, has 3,700 pending demolition orders against it, and we are paying fines - whereas this building, because it is for Jewish settlers, only has a temporary evacuation order against it," he said.
    Silwan residents say that building permits are impossible to obtain, and that Israeli authorities pursue a policy of ridding Jerusalem of its Arab residents by denying them building permission. They say some of the homes which have been demolished were built before 1967 - before Israel annexed east Jerusalem to its borders.
    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who under U.S. pressure ordered a limited settlement freeze in the occupied West Bank, has refused to heed Palestinian demands to give them building permits and to halt the construction of homes for Jews in east Jerusalem.
    Jewish ultra-nationalist Baruch Marzel said that the municipality and police ought to exercise the law on everybody.
    "If they want to enforce the law on everyone, then let them enforce it on everyone. But there cannot be a situation in which the law is enforced only against Jews and not against hundreds and thousands of Arab houses here in the area that have been built without permission or law on Jewish land," he said.
    Citing biblical roots to the city, Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its "indivisible and eternal capital", a claim that has not been recognised internationally.
    Palestinians want East Jerusalem, annexed by Israel after the 1967 conflict, to be the capital of the state they hope to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
    Meanwhile, a Palestinian refugee camp on the edge of Jerusalem erupted in violence after Israeli police carried out a raid to arrest municipal tax evaders and Palestinians responded with stone-throwing.
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