A controversial plan to raze Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem was approved by the Planning and Building Committee due to pressure by Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat, despite expert opinion suggesting the plan had many defects, documents obtained by Haaretz exposed on Monday.

According to the documents, the city’s professional echelon harshly criticized the plan to raze 22 Palestinian homes to make room for a tourist center in the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem, and decided that the plan is not ready to be put before the committee.

Moreover, Jerusalem sources claim that the plan was approved very quickly which was an unusual move.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The plan calls for razing 22 Palestinian homes that were built without permits and constructing a tourism center in their place which is called Al Bustan in Arabic and Gan Hamelekh (King’s Garden ) in Hebrew and is to include restaurants and boutique hotels.

The city said it will help the residents of the 22 homes slated for demolition to move to other areas of Silwan.

Mayor Nir Barkat said last week that he was dismissing city council member and Deputy Mayor Pepe Alalo, for voting against the plan in the Planning and Building Committee. The mayor also announced that he was kicking the other representatives of Meretz out of his municipal coalition as well.

According to the documents Haaretz has obtained, the department which inspects building plans prior to their submission to the planning committee found no less than 250 defects in the Silwan plan.

Moreover, just a week before the plan was approved, Jerusalem city engineer Shlomo Eshkol submitted a list of 30 criticisms of the plan, which included demands for significant changes.

Jerusalem municipality’s legal adviser, attorney Yossi Havilio, also found that the plan did not meet legal standards. Because of this, Barkat privately hired lawyer to oversee the plan on behalf of the municipality.

The Jerusalem municipality said in a statement that it sees the Silwan plan as an “opportunity to revamp an area where many construction felonies exist.” It also said that “the plan won’t be executed before all the criticisms are taken care of, which are mostly technical ones that could be easily fixed.”

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount