The Supreme Court’s ruling on Amona has finally allowed the Jerusalem Municipality to approve the immediate implementation of demolition orders for illegal Arab buildings that was held up by the courts for year. Mayor Nir Barkat approved the demolitions for 14 buildings containing 40 Arab families in Jerusalem’s Beit Hanina neighborhood which were illegally built on private Jewish land even before receiving final legal advice from Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit.
Barkat had warned that a ruling in favor of Arab claimants against the West Bank settlement would have far-reaching consequences for Arab residents of east Jerusalem. He reiterated that the municipality is “committed to acting according to the rule of law for Jews and Arabs. Following the High Court’s ruling on Amona, the Jerusalem Municipality’s legal adviser requested that the court carry out immediate execution of judicial demolition orders for 14 illegal buildings sitting on private land managed by the administrator-general of the State of Israel … and to cancel the delayed execution of demolition orders.”
Barkat said the Amona ruling now clears the way for carrying out hundreds of similar demolition orders against Arab residents living in illegal east Jerusalem homes.
In a related matter, the Ateret Cohanim organization, which works to ensure the rights of Jewish land ownership in Jerusalem’s Old City and in eastern Jerusalem, has submitted an evacuation order against nine Arab families in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.
This is the latest of 72 such orders against Arab families in that area due to their illegal squatting in the Jewish “Yemenite Village” neighborhood in Silwan. The Jewish village was established at the beginning of the 20th century and was populated by Yemenite Jews who fled for their lives in the 1930’s due to murderous Arab attacks.
Ateret Cohanim was appointed by the magistrate’s court in 2001 to continue the legacy of the original “Hekdesh Benvenisti” organization which was established in 1899 to oversee the development of the Yemenite neighborhood. Since then, Ateret Cohanim has worked to remove Arabs illegally living on the Jewish property.
Last year the Abu-Nab family was removed from their home in the ancient synagogue of the Yemenite Village. The building is undergoing renovations to make it a functioning synagogue again.