Jeff Wright
Mondoweiss / May 28, 2023
A suspension bridge, a half-mile zip line, and plans for a cable car traversing the Old City are turning Jerusalem into a Jewish Biblical theme park at the expense of its Palestinian residents and multi-cultural history.
A suspension bridge, a half-mile zip line, and impending plans for the construction of a cable car — all traversing what is known as the holy basin to the west and south of the Old City of Jerusalem — continue to turn what was not long ago an open, rolling landscape into a Biblical theme park focusing on the area’s Jewish heritage at the expense of its multi-cultural history and the Palestinians living in the area.
Recent developments are reported in the May newsletter of Emek Shaveh an Israeli NGO working “to defend cultural heritage rights and to protect ancient sites as public assets that belong to members of all communities, faiths and peoples,” according to its website.
“The[nearly completed] Hinnom Valley suspension bridge will be the longest of its kind in the country and was advanced as an ‘extreme sport’ project,” according to Emek Shaveh. It leads from Mount Zion to the House in the Valley, an events facility. The NGO alleges, “The bridge is damaging to the ancient city skyline.”
A controversial, nearly half-mile-long zip line is also scheduled to be completed this month, according to a sign posted near Beit Schatz, an Israeli visitors center. The line leads from the center down to camping grounds in the so-called Peace Forest.
The cable car project, running from a station in West Jerusalem to a station on Mount Zion and on to the City of David in Silwan, “is potentially the most destructive of the projects currently under development in the historic basin,” Emek Shaveh charges. “When it was first revealed,” the newsletter says, “it drew criticism from hundreds of heritage professionals in Israel and abroad.” While a High Court decision green-lighted the cable car a year ago, a request for proposal has yet to be advertised, according to Emek Shevah.
All three ventures benefit the work of the City of David Foundation, or ELAD (its Hebrew acronym). The private Jewish settler organization receives most of its funding through agencies of the state of Israel and from the Jerusalem municipality. The government has allocated hundreds of millions of shekels for ELAD’s questionable archeological projects.
In a May 23 statement sent to diplomats and the press, Emek Shaveh charges that since 2018 government funding has “enabled some of the most ethically and professionally problematic Antiquities Authority projects which included the excavation of the first century Roman street (dubbed the “Pilgrims Road”) under the homes of residents of the Wadi Hilweh neighborhood in Siwan.”
“As settlers take over larger portions of [Jerusalem], changing its skyline and story, the city is losing its timeless character as a city of three faiths and two peoples.” – Israeli NGO Emek Shaveh
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s cabinet met in a tunnel underneath the Western Wall on Jerusalem Day this month. Before the cabinet approved still another 41 million NIS to fund controversial projects of the government’s Shalem Plan—”’defined as a plan to enhance Jerusalem’s status as an ‘international city of faith, heritage, culture and tourism,’” according to Emek Shaveh—Netanyahu said in an opening statement, “As a Jerusalemite from the age of two days, because I was born in Tel Aviv and arrived in Jerusalem at the age of two days, I remember Jerusalem and it is changing daily. It has wonderful things that do not change but there are also great and powerful changes that are bursting with momentum, imagination and hope.”
But Emek Shaveh, Peace Now, and others charge that while ELAD’s plans might emphasize its purpose to preserve Jewish heritage and drive tourism, its intentions are to push Palestinians out of East Jerusalem and to cover over the multi-layered and multicultural history of Jerusalem.
In its statement delivered to diplomats and the press, Emek Shaveh wrote, “Once again we see that when it comes to the Elad Foundation’s plans to erase Jerusalem’s multicultural identity, the government is willing to invest millions. For years we have been warning against the government’s willingness to outsource the management of heritage sites to an extremist settlers’ organization. Now we are seeing the results. As the settlers take over larger portions of the historic city changing its skyline and story, the city is losing its timeless character as a city of three faiths and two peoples.”
Excavations at the Pool of Siloam
Readers may recall the Mondoweiss story about how settlers, accompanied by Israel’s Border Police, took over an orchard located near the Pool of Siloam and ordered the Palestinian family who had cultivated the land for generations to leave. At that time, according to Emek Shaveh’s May newsletter, “the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Nature and Parks Authority issued a press release announcing that within a few months the ancient Pool of Siloam will be revealed in its original grandeur. The press release included simulated images of the ancient pool.”
Professor Rafi Greenberg, Chairman of Emek Shaveh’s board, and Alon Arad, the NGO’s Executive Director, sent a letter to Eli Escosido, Director General of the Israel Antiquities Authority. They wrote, “This act has been carried out in the service of a private foundation with messianic and controversial ambitions turning archaeological excavations into a political mechanism intended to advance the ambitions of a small group who wish to take control over the past and the future of this city which is precious to us all. In so doing, the Antiquities Authority places a stain on Israel’s archaeological project as a whole.”
As Emek Shaveh notes, “Archaeological practice does not usually entail confident prophecies about finds that have yet to be unearthed.”
Accompanied by heartbreaking before and after pictures, the NGO ended its newsletter, reporting, “The excavation itself has so far revealed nothing. Four months after the orchard was destroyed, and the fabric of life in Silwan further unraveled, there is nothing to show for the excavation.”
Jeff Wright is an ordained minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
