At a special commemorative Jerusalem Day session held yesterday in the Western Wall Tunnels, the cabinet of the Israeli government approved a plan for a controversial cable car project that would reinforce touristic settlement in the Historic Basin by directly linking west Jerusalem to settler managed tourist sites in East Jerusalem. The cable line is intended to run from Abu Tur in West Jerusalem, over the East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Abu Tur and Silwan, to a stop in the vicinity of the Dung Gate entrance to the Western Wall Plaza in the Old City.  The Ministry of Tourism will assume responsibility for project planning and will allocate 15 million shekels to develop the plan in 2017/2018. 

In March, Minister of Tourism Yariv Levin (Likud) predicted in a radio interview that the cable car would be operational in 3 years.  Critical to note, Levin also stated that the master plan would be approved at the special committee for national infrastructure, not through the local and district planning and building committees, thereby allowing it to bypass the traditional approval process and normal objection procedures.

The cable car would infuse an amusement park feel to what has been called the “Disneyfication of East Jerusalem” or “biblical tourism” – the erasure of Palestinian neighborhoods through the proliferation of touristic settlement sites in Palestinian neighborhoods of the Historic Basin. The most significant of these sites is the popular City of David, daily management of which was conferred to the Elad settler organization by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority; along with Elad operated water tunnels, a sifting project in Emek Tzurim, adjacent to the Old City, and numerous activities in the Peace Forest in Abu Tor. The siting of most of these tourist centers in close proximity to the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif makes them particularly dangerous.  

Yesterday’s decision gave approval to the first stage of the cable car plan. Although it does not specify the exact location of the Dung Gate station, earlier reports have indicated that it would be located at the Elad promoted Kedem Compound in Silwan, an approved plan for a massive visitor center to be erected on 16,000 square meters of land across from the City of David and Old City walls. The cable line is ultimately expected to extend from the Dung Gate to the Mount of Olives Cemetery in Ras alAmud – either directly or through an intermediate station in the middle of Silwan, where there is also a plan to erect the King’s Garden national park. If built, the King’s Garden project will require the demolition of up to 56 Palestinian homes.

The trend of touristic settlement is part and parcel of growing private settlement in the Old City and Historic Basin increasing Palestinian displacement via a combined strategy of home takeovers, evictions and private management of tourist facilities.  Under the guise of tourism and recreation, these developments reduce available public space for Palestinian residents while enabling the use of national parks to subordinate history and archaeology to the service of the Jewish narrative. Along with the mounting uptick in settler initiated evictions of Palestinians (see Batan al-Hawa report for most significant example) and demolitions in the Historic Basin, privatization of parks and tourist sites to private settler organizations contributes to the consolidation of Israeli control of the Historic Basin, further complicating opening conditions for an agreed political resolution on the city.

Please address all inquiries to:

Betty Herschman

Director of International Relations & Advocacy

Ir Amim (City of Nations/City of Peoples)

Jerusalem

betty@ir-amim.org.il

054-308-5096

www.ir-amim.org.il

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Twitter: @IrAmimAlerts