Taking Jerusalem by stealth
Date: October 6, 1996
Publication: Independent on Sunday
Author: Patrick Cockburn
Independent on Sunday At 7.30 in the morning two weeks
ago Khalid Kurd Rashid, a jeweller in the Old City of Jerusalem,
received a phone call to say that a house his family owned
was being taken over by Jewish settlers.
When he arrived at the building it was too late. "We
found the locks were smashed and there were armed guards
in the house. We told the police this was our property,
but they would not help. I was so angry I said there would
be bloodshed." When one ofhis family tried to force
his way into the building, he was hit by one of the guards
the settlers had brought.
By now Mr Rashid had a very good idea who had taken over
the house. Some years before, his family had been contacted,
through middlemen, by an organisation much feared by Palestinians
in Jerusalem. Known as Ateret Cohanim - the Crown of the
Priests - itis dedicated to replacing Palestinians with
Jews throughout the historic city. The Rashid family said
they did not want to sell.
Backed by right-wing American Jewish millionaires and Israeli
government money illegally siphoned off during the 1980s,
according to a government inquiry, Ateret Cohanim has moved
600 settlers into the Muslim quarter of the Old City of
Jerusalem. Thehouses they have taken over are easily visible,
because blue and white Israeli flags fly from the barred
windows and tough-looking guards, subsidised by the government,
stand outside with sub-machine guns.
During the previous Labour government Ateret Cohanim was
outwardly quiescent. But since Benjamin Netanyahu and the
right won the election in May, it has restarted its takeover
campaign. One house in Silwan, just below Temple Mount on
the site of thehistoric City of David, was occupied by settlers
on the very morning of the election, even before Mr Netanyahu
was declared the official winner.
To the outside world the opening of the tunnel under the
Old City may have appeared to be a single, if provocative,
event which led to the violence in which 58 Palestinians
and 15 Israelis died. But for the 25,000 Palestinians in
the Old City ofJerusalem, ringed by its Ottoman walls, the
tunnel was only one element in a three-pronged effort to
replace them by Jews which has gathered force since Mr Netanyahu
and his right-wing government were elected. The other elements
in the offensive, partgovernment, part private, are the
takeover or demolition of houses owned by Palestinians.
The occupation of the Rashid house, opposite the American
Consulate on the Nablus Road in an historic part of the
city, is not an isolated event. Arye Amit, the police chief
of Jerusalem, says: "It is the beginning of the property
war in East Jerusalem.There are many other buildings, I
won't say how many, that have been purchased [by settlers],
or are in the process of being purchased."
Demolition of Palestinian-owned buildings has also increased,
mainly at the initiative of the mayor of Jerusalem, Ehud
Olmert, who seizes on legal technicalities wherever possible.
A community centre and club for disabled children was knocked
down nearHerod's Gate in late August. At the meeting on
16 September which decided to open the tunnel, Mr Olmert
raised the question of demolishing a house in Maronite Convent
Street, on the edge of the Armenian quarter. The top storey
has been deemed to havebeen built without a permit - which
Palestinians say they are systematically refused - and has
been destroyed.
It is not merely that those responsible for the opening
of the tunnel share a common ideological purpose with those
taking over and demolishing Arab houses in Jerusalem. Often
the same people are involved, according to Danny Seidman,
a lawyer for IrShalem, a group which monitors takeovers
in Jerusalem. The group in charge of the tunnel - the Kotel
Heritage Foundation - is closely linked to Ateret Cohanim,
he says. "There is a confluence in terms of ideology,
organisation and personnel between thetwo."
All this was denied at great length by Benjamin Netanyahu
at the end of last week's summit in Washington. Of the opening
of the gate into the Via Dolorosa: "We knocked down
a wall 20cm [8in] thick. That's all we did. We opened a
gate to an existingarchaeological dig that had been completed
years ago." He said the media was stirring up hatred
by portraying Israel as the enemy of Islam, and repeating
charges that the tunnel undermines the mosques and shrines
on the great masonry platform known toMuslims as the Haram
esh-Sharif and Jews as Temple Mount.
This was disingenuous. In practice the tunnel extends the
Wailing Wall, the main Jewish religious site to the north,
into the Muslim quarter of the city. Its religious significance
was underlined by the fact that it was paid for by the Ministry
ofReligious Affairs. The southern end of the tunnel is used
by ultra-orthodox Jews who want to pray without the polluting
presence of women at the Wailing Wall, and skullcaps are
distributed to visitors.
There is a further effect of opening a gate into the Via
Dolorosa. The heavy security presence to protect visitors
means that there is a line of Israeli police blocking the
street. They are backed by plainclothes security men sitting
on a grey metalbench, and Palestinians who live in the neighbourhood
are questioned when they go to their homes. They are already
hampered by the presence 200 yards away of Israeli soldiers
guarding a house belonging to Ariel Sharon, the Infrastructure
Minister, whichwas taken over in 1987. It is increasingly
difficult for them to live a normal life in the district.
One of those who attended the opening of the tunnel and
is also heavily involved in Ateret Cohanim was Irving Moskowitz,
a multi-millionaire from south Florida who owns hospitals
and a bingo parlour in California. For years he has funded
the takeover ofPalestinian buildings, giving $1m (pounds
650,000) to buy Shepherd's Hotel in East Jerusalem in 1985
because, he told the Washington Post, he wanted "to
do everything I possibly can to help reclaim Jerusalem for
the Jewish people".
Most of the funds used by Ateret Cohanim came from the
last Likud government before it lost power in 1992. Citing
the government's Klugman report of 1992, Danny Seidman said:
"There is upwards of $10m still missing." But
Dr Moskovitz, who is a vocalopponent of the Oslo accords
with the Palestinians, has also given Ateret Cohanim $2.35m.
Investigation by Mr Rashid's lawyer last week revealed that
the millionaire had paid for part of the building in Nablus
road which was not owned by the Rashidfamily.
He is also reported to have played a critical role in getting
the tunnel opened. The Miami Herald said last week that
Mr Netanyahu, though initially hesitant, opened the gateway
"to reward Moskowitz and other American benefactors",
but this may be anoversimplification.
Mr Olmert, the mayor, faces a political corruption trial
for allegedly providing Likud party contributors in the
1988 general election with phony receipts to be used for
tax purposes. Political observers believe that his vigorous
campaign of demolitionsand his personal participation in
opening the tunnel are an attempt to divert attention from
his legal troubles. But his excavation may have made things
worse. The Israeli press has discovered that, while eager
to demolish Palestinian houses on legaltechnicalities, he
has allegedly broken the law by failing to get planning
permission for his tunnel excavation.
The previous Likud administration covertly gave funds to
Ateret Cohanim to achieve its aim of ousting Palestinians
from the Old City of Jerusalem and neighbouring historic
districts like the Mount of Olives and the City of David
(Silwan), and thisfunding is believed to have been resumed
by the new government.
Against heavy Palestinian resistance, the takeover of the
Old City will take a long time. But the very attempt has
created great bitterness. "The city is a mosaic of
communities," says Danny Seidman. "If takeovers
continue, Jerusalem will become likeHebron, with no possibility
of coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians."
Patrick Cockburn, Taking Jerusalem by stealth. , Independent
on Sunday, 10-06-1996, pp 12.
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