Jewish Families Move Into East Jerusalem

16 families enter their new residences at dawn, doubling current Jewish population at Arab village. Uri Glickman

Following a year of covert planning, 16 Jewish families last night moved in to their new residences in the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem. The new tenants entered their homes under heavy security and in coordination with the Jerusalem Police.

As a result, the Jewish population of the generally hostile Arab village of Silwan has doubled. David Be'eri, head of the “Elad” foundation, which purchased the homes, told Maariv Online, “About a decade ago, during my military service, I decided that I must do something to enable Jews to walk the streets of eastern Jerusalem freely. So I began buying homes in Silwan. I established connections with local Arab residents so as eventually to persuade them to sell their homes, which I bought with the generous help of contributors overseas”.

Beeri added, “our intention is to create a Jewish territorial continuity between the City of David (where Silwan is located) and the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. Up to yesterday, 15 houses had been purchased and populated by Jews; Before dawn last night we completed another stage when 16 more families moved in .”

Surprisingly, some of the locals were unfazed by the new Jewish neighbors and the Israeli flags that have been raised on rooftops. “I don’t see any problem with us living side by side”, says a local Palestinian laborer. “The problem is between the leaders. Ordinary people can live in peace,” he said.

Jerusalem's Palestinian Arabs have never been part of the Palestinian Authority and, by many accounts, don't want to have anything to do with that organization.

Silwan was an ancient Jewish neighborhood that had Jewish residents through the early 20th century until they were forced out by arab terror riots.

Ir David - the ancient City of David, just to the south and below the Temple Mount, the Western Wall Plaza and the rest of the Old City of Jerusalem - continues to flourish, some 2,800 years after its founding. Members of the Elad Association, which has settled the area with 26 Jewish families in the past 15 years, moved into three new complexes over the night. They were granted control of the buildings - located on the slopes of Mt. Zion, just to the west of Ir David proper - after more than two years of quiet but intensive work, and faced no legal problems. Some of the apartments must be renovated before families will be able to live in them.

De'uel (Duly) Basok, a member of Elad, happily told Arutz-7 today, "We entered 15 new apartments in three buildings last night, forming Jewish contiguity between Ir David and the Jewish Quarter of the Old City." The buildings are located off a street known to the locals as Falafel Way, but which appears on maps as Malki Tzedek St. It can be reached when leaving the Western Wall by making a right at Dung Gate and then a quick left into an area that most Jews have long viewed as an Arab area very much off-limits.

Asked what occurred in the past few weeks to make the entry possible, Basok said, "When dealing with Jerusalem, the perspective is not in terms of weeks, but very much longer than that. We have been working on this for 2-3 years, intensively and quietly, purchasing another apartment and another and another, with tremendous patience and strong nerves, and at a certain point, we were able to move into several of them at once... This will bear fruit for tourism in the area, in terms of access to Dung Gate and in terms of the beautiful view from there, and in general will be a great boon for the Jewish presence near the Old City." Basok said that there are waiting lists for people who want to move in, "but those who truly feel connected to ancient Jerusalem, to 3,000 years of history, to the Bible, and to the original location of Jerusalem - will find their way here, and we will receive them warmly and with open arms."

Arutz-7's Ariel Kahane said, "Permit me to ask a pointed question: Even with 15 new families, isn't your new total of 40 families in 15 years just a drop in the ocean?"

Basok: "No, it's not a drop in the ocean; it's a drop in Jerusalem. Secondly, those who know the map of Jerusalem and the mountain of Ir David know that almost the entire eastern hillside is in our hands, including the main paths leading to the Shiloach (Pool of Siloam) and to other ancient sites there. We have had tens of thousands of visitors a year, including more than 100,000 one year - such that this 'drop' is heavily concentrated in a very critical spot. In addition, these 15 families are only the beginning of our Stage Two - from which you can understand that there will be a continuation, leading even to a Stage Three. Our goal is to create an area where Jews can feel totally free to walk around in the area where half the Bible was written. As Rabbi Yehuda HaLevy [12th century poet and author of HaKuzari] wrote, "If I could only stroll around in the places where G-d revealed Himself to your prophets." We want to have Jewish children playing here, yeshivot here - full Jewish life, in total safety. We have not yet reached that stage - although it is already a great place to live. There are some difficulties, such as steep inclines, difficult approaches for cars, and - the most pleasant of the difficulties - the fact that our houses are always open to the hundreds and sometimes thousands of visitors who frequent here. We feel that we are at the center of Jewish nation, and the Jewish nation feels it as well."

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=57466

Settling for trouble

Israeli settlers move into Arab East Jerusalem

By Dara MacNeil

Irving Moskowitz and Binyamin Netanyahu appear to have a lot in common. Principally, both appear to be possessed of a unique ability to stir up conflict and controversy. Provoking other people has become something of a trademark for these two individuals.

Last September, Israeli premier Netanyahu gave his stamp of approval to a scheme that, ultimately, resulted in over a hundred deaths and threatened to engulf the entire Middle East in conflict.

The scheme was the opening of an ancient 2000 year old tunnel which runs alongside the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. The tunnel opening had long been a cherished project of right-wing Israelis. Having given it his imprimatur, Mr Netanyahu then departed on a European tour, oblivious to the consequences of his actions.

The tunnel was duly opened, without prior warning, in a dramatic dead of night ceremony. Naturally, the Moslem population of Jerusalem took offence.

The al-Aqsa mosque is the third holiest site in Islam. They feared that right-wing Israelis were about to close the mosque. Riots and gunbattles involving the Israeli military and Palestinian police followed. Sixty Palestinians and 15 Israelis died in the immediate aftermath of the tunnel re-opening. The death toll was to climb to over a hundred before Netanyahu was forced to back down and order the closing of the tunnel.

Central to the tunnel re-opening project had been one Irving Moskowitz, a Florida-based millionaire known for his largesse towards the more fundamentalist elements in Israeli society. Indeed, Mr Moskowitz was a special guest of honour at the tunnel re-opening ceremony.

And now the Florida-based money man is at it again. Recently, Moskowitz purchased several buildings in Arab East Jerusalem. Last Sunday, again in the dead of night, the buildings were occupied by right-wing Israelis, delighted at having gained yet another foothold in the Arab quarter.

Moskowitz, who made his money running bingo halls, was in Jerusalem to see the fruits of his perverse labours. He issued a statement in the aftermath of the takeover, stating that his buildings in the Ras al-Amoud area of the city represented a ``vital safeguard for the unity of Jerusalem.''

Under the Oslo Accords, `the unity of Jerusalem' is an issue that was supposed to have been negotiated between the Israeli and Palestinian authorities.

Palestinians view East Jerusalem, at least, as the future capital of a putative Palestinian state. Yet for the last number of years, the Israelis have been constructing settlements around the outskirts of East Jerusalem.

The settlements - most controversially, the Har Homah settlement - form a ring around the Arab quarter. As a result, they virtually cut the quarter off from its natural hinterland in the West Bank, thus undermining its role as a potential Palestinian capital.

Equally, by increasing the Jewish population of the area, Israel is creating what Palestinian minister Hanan Ashrawi has described as ``facts on the ground'', meaning Israel is deliberately undermining Palestinian claims to East Jerusalem by peopling it with the modern-day equivalent of colonial settlers

Incidentally, the notion floated by settlement advocate Binyamin Netanyahu, that the settlements are required to ease a chronic housing shortage in Jerusalem, is patent nonsense. Earlier this year, a US study showed that more than 25% of all homes in the new settlements were, in fact, empty. But this has not prevented the confiscation of at least 7500 acres of Palestinian land, this year alone, to further the settlement programme.

Curiously, Netanyahu has received a great deal of international praise for his supposed opposition to the Moskowitz-financed occupation in East Jerusalem. Curious because Netanyahu has not opposed the scheme. Instead, he merely voiced the opinion that the move came at ``the wrong time.'' Not once has he condemned or opposed the principle behind the scheme. Hardly surprising, given his penchant for provoking conflict.

http://www.stopmoskowitz.com/tale.shtml

This page provides a quick introduction to the campaign of the Coalition for Justice in Hawaiian Gardens and Jerusalem. You can find dozens of news reports and documents by clicking on the links above, which are available throughout the site.

The Basics

Irving Moskowitz exports misery from Hawaiian Gardens to Jerusalem along with the money he collects from gamblers at his bingo and casino in Hawaiian Gardens, a small predominantly Latino city in Los Angeles County.

New Report

Gambling on Extremism, How Irving Moskowitz took over a small town to bankroll Israel's anti-peace settlers (900kb PDF, right-click to save), a comprehensive report published December 16, 2003, on the devastating impact Moskowitz's California gambling operations have had on Hawaiian Gardens and Jerusalem, including new information on Moskowitz's ties to US "neocons."

What we have tried to do with this report is to create a comprehensive analysis of Moskowitz's own "road map" of obstructionism. Our goal was to understand: What was his strategy in East Jerusalem? How does he use his California gambling operations to further his goals? Why has the Hawaiian Gardens city government been unable to reign in his card club ambitions or at least harness them to the betterment - rather than the degradation - of their own civic community? And just where did the money come from that first enabled Moskowitz to seize the role of principal financier of Israel's extremists?

As long as the Middle East remains a place of tyranny and despair and anger, it will continue to produce men and movements that threaten the safety of America and our friends. So America is pursuing a forward strategy of freedom in the greater Middle East. We will challenge the enemies of reform, confront the allies of terror, and expect a higher standard from our friend. To cut through the barriers of hateful propaganda, the Voice of America and other broadcast services are expanding their programming in Arabic and Persian -- and soon, a new television service will begin providing reliable news and information across the region. I will send you a proposal to double the budget of the National Endowment for Democracy, and to focus its new work on the development of free elections, and free markets, free press, and free labor unions in the Middle East. And above all, we will finish the historic work of democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, so those nations can light the way for others, and help transform a troubled part of the world. (Applause.)

America is a nation with a mission, and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace -- a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman. America acts in this cause with friends and allies at our side, yet we understand our special calling: This great republic will lead the cause of freedom. (Applause.)

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