MORE ON THE SILWAN LAND CONTROVERSY:

Arab homes on Jewish historical site stoke strife (AP)

By BEN HUBBARD – 41 minutes ago

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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.

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And Joseph I. Lauer notes an Haaretz editorial by Nadav Shragai. Excerpts:

Last summer the director general of the Antiquities Authority, Shuka Dorfman, noted in a kind of "post mortem" that the construction in the King's Garden caused significant and irreversible damage to antiquities.

Representatives of the municipality and Dorfman admitted that they had no good explanation for what has happened in this lovely garden, which is described in the Books of Nechemiah and Ecclesiastes, in midrashim (rabbinic Biblical homiletics) and in many historical sources. Dorfman stressed that together with Tel David, the garden constitutes the only complete archaeological garden of first-rate importance.

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When the state comptroller began to look into the matter last fall, a plan for laundering the construction initiated by the inhabitants, leftist elements and human rights organizations had already found its way to the planning commissions. About two weeks ago the plan was rejected and since then the area has been simmering and especially subject to incitement.

The Palestinian Authority and Northern Branch Islamic Movement leader Sheikh Ra'ad Salah have called foreign diplomats to the site, begun demonstrations and initiated an outcry. Last Saturday, the protest over "the intention to carry out the demolition orders in the King's Garden" expanded into a general commercial strike in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and East Jerusalem.

The attempt to kasher the illegal construction in the King's Garden was a grave mistake, and it is good that it failed. Nevertheless, carrying out the demolition orders as written, nearly 20 years after the violation was committed, may be just, but it is not wise.

The solution suggested by Yakir Segev, who holds the East Jerusalem portfolio in the municipality, to evacuate the lawbreakers and to give them compensation and land elsewhere, is more fair.

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Background here.