Israel demolishes historic Shepherd's Hotel in Palestinian East Jerusalem

Below are two comments on the demolition by Israel of the historic "Shepherd's Hotel' in East Jerusalem.

• The first is from the Negotiation Affairs Department of the PLO.
• The second is from the Economist

The Shepherds Hotel, once the home of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, is on a height of land in Palestinian East Jerusalem. Israel confiscated it when it occupied the West Bank in 1967 and it has been unused since. It is on prime land and beside the UK consulate. It would be one of the key buildings in any new Palestinian state. Recently, Israel has ordered it demolished and plans to build apartments for Israeli Jews.

For Immediate Release

January 9, 2011

Palestine Liberation Organization

Negotiations Affairs Department

“Israel continues its efforts to cleanse Jerusalem of its Palestinian inhabitants, heritage and history.”

Dr. Saeb Erakat, Chief Palestinian Negotiator, denounced today the Israeli demolition of the Shepherd Hotel in Jerusalem, initiated at 5 am this morning.

“The State of Israel is demolishing one Palestinian property after another in an effort to cleanse Jerusalem of its Palestinian inhabitants, heritage and history. East Jerusalem, and the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in particular, havebeen targeted by Israel in a campaign to forcibly remove Palestinians and supplant them with Jewish settlers. Such actions are unlawful and undermine the two-state solution and the negotiations process.”

The Chief Palestinian Negotiator concluded, “What is happening today is part ofthe political program of the Israeli government to preempt any solution on Jerusalem. While Netanyahu continues his public relations campaign regarding the peace process, on the ground he is rapidly moving  to prevent the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state.” 

Settlement plans in Sheikh Jarrah, similar to those in Silwan, Mount of Olives,Ras Al Amoud, Al Issawiya and other neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, aim to create a ring of settlements severing the Old City from the rest of occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.”

The property currently referred to as the Shepherd’s Hotel was built in the1930’s by Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, as his family home outside of the Old City of Jerusalem. In 1967, the Hotel, along with the rest of Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood where it’s located, fell under Israeli occupation. Israeli authorities confiscated the property and  transferred it to the Israeli Custodian of Absentee Property who in turn transferred it to the Israeli Development Authority from where it subsequently passed, on 5 November 1985, to "C & M Properties."

The Shepherd’s Hotel is currently being demolished  in order to facilitate theconstruction of a residential Jewish settlement. These demolition and settlement construction plans mask an settlement  project that date back to the 1984. In July 2009, the Israeli planning authorities approved the construction license for the project, thus allowing for the demolition of the existing building in favor of two new residential buildings, which will include 30 housing units and associated amenities at the first stage and 90 housing units at a later stage.

As Palestinians call for recognition of their state, its contours are blurring

(excerpts from Economist article. for full article go to http://www.economist.com/node/17913606

A map of Jerusalem showing the border between Israel (in green) and East Jerusalem (in pink) which Israel Occupied in 1967. Israel continues its program of taking over all of Jerusalem, by tearing down historic Palestinian buildings, evicting Palestinians from their homes and building new settlements for Jews. Canada does not recognize Israel's right to continue the occupation but does very little to oppose it. We will see whether Canada will say anything about this latest step. (Note: the caption is mine, not the Economists.)

Few architectural sites in East Jerusalem capture the flavour of Palestine’s British Mandate more acutely than the Shepherd Hotel. It was where British officers hobnobbed with Palestinian high society before the territory was partitioned in 1948.

But on January 9th the Israeli authorities, who argue that all of Jerusalem is theirs, and rarely license Arabs in the city to add so much as a balcony to their homes, gave the go-ahead for bulldozers to flatten a wing of the hotel to enable Jewish homes to be erected in its place.

Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, derisively calls the site just another “private house”, saying it would be wrong to make certain districts of Jerusalem out of bounds for Jews. But the new settlement to be built on the rubble forms the missing link in a tongue of land acquired by Jewish settlers that rolls down from the outer hilltops to the heart of the city’s Arab part.

It is in East Jerusalem’s diplomatic quarter, beside the British consulate and offices of European governments accredited to the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is supposed to run the emerging Palestinian state, thus highlighting foreign impotence over the erosion of Palestinian areas.

European officials in Brussels, unable to stop such actions, have charged Israel with illegality and obstructing peace. 

A statement by foreign ministers of the European Union (EU) even seemed to equate the recognition of Israel with that of Palestine. One inference was that, if the Palestinians failed to secure a state, Israelis might forfeit theirs too. Not so long ago Germany, racked by guilt over the Holocaust, would have rushed to quash such chidings by the EU, but no longer.