FACEBOOK
TWITTER
RSS
SUBSCRIBE
ABOUTAttorney Kais Nasser: “Anyone who reads the documentation file can see that the request for a permit was in fact intended to take revenge on the mufti in his grave, 100 years later, for his political positions in the Arab-Jewish conflict… The request for a permit has a political and Zionist agenda.”
IOA Editor: From the Before and After photos, the demolition of this fine example of Jerusalem architecture appears to be a done deal. Yet another bit of Palestinian history erased by Israel.
Shepherd Hotel, befroe demolition - Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem
By Ranit Nahum-Halevy, Haaretz – 17 Jan 2010
www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/jerusalem-orders-construction-halted-at-site-of-controversial-sheikh-jarrah-hotel-1.337413
The appeals committee of the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee has issued a temporary injunction order to stop construction work at the controversial Shepherd Hotel compound in East Jerusalem, until the matter can be discussed at a meeting on Wednesday.
The partial demolition of the hotel, in the city’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, began a week ago. The developer, Irving Moskowitz, who is considered a major patron of Jewish construction in East Jerusalem, plans to build two residential buildings with 20 apartments each on the site, for Jews. The buildings, which will house about 100 people in total, will eventually link up with Jewish housing in the nearby Shimon Hatzadik neighborhood.
Demolition of the Shepherd Hotel - Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem, 9 Jan 2011
Construction was suspended after attorney Kais Nasser, who represents the religious council for Muslim affairs in Israel and other clients, filed an emergency application for the injunction. Nasser says the building permit issued for the project contravenes international law prohibiting the establishment of a settlement in occupied territory.
Nasser also said a Jewish neighborhood cannot be built in the heart of an Arab neighborhood.
In his petition to the appeals committee, Nasser argued that Shepherd Hotel should be preserved because of its historical and cultural significance; it was once the home of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini.
Jerusalem’s Municipal Conservation Commission based its approval on the documentation file it received, which stated that the building was of no architectural significance.
“Anyone who reads the documentation file can see that the request for a permit was in fact intended to take revenge on the mufti in his grave, 100 years later, for his political positions in the Arab-Jewish conflict, Nasser wrote in his petition. “The request for a permit has a political and Zionist agenda,” Nasser also wrote.
Shepherd Hotel demolition - Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem
According to Nasser, the building permit was issued on March 18, 2010, but the public was not aware it had been issued. “The appellants became aware that the permit had been issued after the appellants’ representative clarified the facts. If they had known about the request, they would have been the first to oppose it and take legal steps to stop it,” Nasser wrote.
Nasser also pointed out that process of obtaining the permit was made easier because it was issued by the licensing authority without going through the entire usual procedure. He noted that the master plan, by virtue of which the permit was issued, is for an Arab neighborhood.
“It is inconceivable that the plan, intended for the construction of an Arab neighborhood, also intended to allow the construction of a Jewish settlement in that neighborhood. The establishment of a Jewish neighborhood is a case of a ‘considerable deviation’ from the intent of the master plan, because this use essentially changes the character of the immediate environment,” Nasser wrote the appeals committee.
Nasser compared the construction of a Jewish neighborhood on the site of the Shepherd Hotel to the construction of an Arab neighborhood in the middle of Bar-Ilan Street, an ultra-Orthodox area of Jerusalem.
Please support the IOA so that we can continue covering the Israeli Occupation. To help, please CLICK HERE
{ 1 comment }
This destruction is disgraceful and illegal under international law – it must be halted and the plans for contruction of a Jewish neighbourhood and housing must not be permitted under any circumstances. The sale of this property and land to Ateret Hacohanim is also questionable, because the property was appropriated illegally by the Israeli state under the Absentee Properties Act which cannot be legally applied to the Occupied Territories under the Geneva Conventions. Thus the sale of the land to Ateret Hacohanim, for housing Jewish residents, is not for security purposes, but for ethnic cleansing of Arab neighbourhoods, as was the intention by Irving Moskovitz, the buyer. The property and land must be handed back to the descendants of the owners immediately, as should all the houses occupied by settlers in Sheikh Jarrah. If not, the houses of Palestinians looted and occupied by Israelis in West Jerusalem should all be handed back to their original owners. This should raise the whole question of 93% of the land of Palestine which was taken over by the Israeli state after the 1948 war, including all the properties in the cities of Haifa, Acre, Jaffa, Ramle and Lud, and all the destroyed Arab villages and land taken over by the IDF, the Haganah, the JNF … and where this one stop!
Comments on this entry are closed.