JERUSALEM Yakoub Rishe fears returning from work one day to find his home wrecked. His wife, Aida, worries that any stranger knocking at the door was sent to kick them out.
Their small cinderblock home is one of 3,000 unlicensed constructions in Jerusalem's Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan. On Monday, city bulldozers toppled a nearby home and garage, spiking residents' fears that more demolitions will follow.
Silwan, a ramshackle neighborhood in east Jerusalem, sits atop a site Israelis call the City of David, named for the biblical monarch who ruled a Jewish kingdom from the spot 3,000 years ago. Jews consider the site an essential link to their ancient history, and the government has designated it an archaeological park.
But the park's expansion is prevented by the Arab homes. Arab residents acknowledge they lack building permits, but say they owned the land before Israel occupied east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast War. They consider the demolition orders an attempt to diminish their presence in the capital of a hoped-for Palestinian state.
Much of the conflict centers on the neighborhood's Bustan quarter, where 88 homes have been slated for demolition since 2005. Last week city officials and security forces visited 15 houses, residents said.
Rishe, 40, said two city officials and four soldiers came to his house and asked for his permit. When he said he didn't have one, they wrote down his name and ID number and photographed the courtyard of his home and the alleyways leading to it.
Other residents gave similar accounts.
The officials didn't say why they came, though Rishe and other residents thought they knew. "These were the practical preparations to destroy the house," he said.
A city spokesman acknowledged that city personnel visited the area but provided no further information.
After the officials left, residents erected a protest tent of two-by-fours and black tarp to draw attention to their cause. While visiting the tent last week, Sheik Raed Salah, leader of the radical branch of Israel's Islamic Movement, encouraged residents to fight the demolition orders. "Our position is clear: either we live on our land or are buried in it," he said.
And speaking about the issue during a visit to Sweden on Wednesday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that carrying out the demolition orders would have "a devastating impact on the peace process."
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said in a written statement last week that the government had issued no new orders for the area, but added that "Illegal construction is illegal construction no matter where it is." Israel's Interior Ministry had rejected residents' permit requests on their private land because the area is intended for "public recreational use," not for residential construction, Barkat said.
Palestinian residents of Silwan worry that the current City of David Museum is just the beginning of a massive redesign of the area to complete the archaeological park. The park land is allocated by the government but developed by the Elad Foundation, an organization associated with Jewish settlers committed to preventing Israel from ceding the area in a peace deal.
Besides financing digs, Elad buys land from Arabs in the neighborhood so Jews can move in. About 70 Israeli families now live in the area, said Doron Spielman, the group's international director of development. Israeli flags mark their homes, and the Israeli government provides armed security.
Spielman called the area "a microcosm of the Arab-Israeli conflict," but said his group will continue to bring in Jewish families and expand the museum, which had 500,000 visitors in 2008.
"The goal is to excavate as much of the City of David as possible and to bring as many visitors to the site as possible," he said.
Spielman said the group's work had no relation to the demolition orders. However, after the demolition orders were issued in 2005, city engineer Uri Shetrit said the park would be established "as soon as possible" once the homes were razed.
Efrat Cohen-Bar, of the Israeli group Bimkom, which advocates equal planning rights for Palestinians, said Arabs often build illegally in areas like Silwan because city plans have given their communities little room to expand. Only 34 percent of the 70,500 dunams (17,400 acres) of east Jerusalem occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war including both open space and population centers were designated for Arab residents, she said. Growing populations soon expanded outside their designated areas.
Rishe said he and his wife spent their whole lives in Silwan but built their home a year and a half ago on land owned by her family. Rishe lives in the four-room house with his wife, aunt, and six children.
During a previous demolition in November, more than 100 troops fired rubber bullets and stun grenades to push back stone-throwing residents. Eleven people were arrested, five policemen injured and a police horse stabbed.
The Rishes said future demolitions would meet with similar resistance.
"If they want to destroy the house, they can bring it down on our heads," said Aida Rishe
Do you think Israel is taking this a little to far or not??
yes and no. I'm a fan of archaeology so digging up more historical sites stirs zero complaints from me. However for peace to come to the middle east, Israel's gotta stop settling on the West bank. it's a tough issue but ultimately the only thing I can think of is eminent domain. Compensate the Palestine folks for making them move off their land or at least build them a house elsewhere in the West Bank.
