Before the almond trees disappear
We do not have to continue to obliterate the past of the Arabs who lived in this land. It would be better to acknowledge the pain of their loss and offer them peaceful coexistence.
By Daphna Golan, 27/02/11 - Haaretz.
In the abandoned village of Lifta, at the entrance to Jerusalem, the almond trees are blossoming, perhaps for the last time. The 50 or so abandoned stone homes, between the green terraces and the fruit trees, are about to be replaced by houses for wealthy foreigners that will be closed up for most of the year.
The Israel Lands Administration has begun marketing Lifta to private developers, without having first prepared a comprehensive preservation plan in accordance with the urban planning program approved for the site and without accounting for the reservations that were accepted by the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee.
The marketing campaign violates the Israel Antiquities Authority request to postpone construction until the completion of a comprehensive survey of the village's buildings, "in order to document this disappearing construction culture and pass it down to future generations." It also runs counter to the municipality's adoption last June of a policy designed to curb the flight of young people from the capital by providing affordable housing. The plans for the new development call for homes of from 190 to 300 square meters and development costs alone - not including the building plot - of NIS 500,000 to NIS 1 million.
Lifta is a small link in Jerusalem's shrinking green necklace, its extraordinarily beautiful terrace agriculture a reminder of an extinct cultural landscape. Its land is being divided up and marketed even though no caretaker has yet been assigned to see to the preservation of its springs and green spaces. Jerusalem's treasures are being privatized and given to well-connected developers, who become rich at the expense of the public and future generations.
The village could have symbolized the hope of reconciliation. Many former residents who fled and were driven out in 1948 live in East Jerusalem. The State of Israel obliterated over 400 Arab communities to built Jews-only kibbutzim, moshavim and cities. We do not have to continue to obliterate the past of the Arabs who lived in this land. It would be better to acknowledge the pain of their loss and offer them peaceful coexistence. Lifta allows us to ask the refugees how they see the future of their village. Lifta once had thousands of dunams, on which the Knesset, the Supreme Court, the Kiryat government complex, the central bus station and Hebrew University's Givat Ram campus were built. Now, with only 55 houses, a cemetery, a spring and a few dozen almond trees left, maybe it is time to ask what kind of neighborly relations we are building between Jews and Arabs. What is Israel offering to Yaqub and Sumaya and Zakariya, born and raised in Lifta? What are we, the Israelis who were raised on the denial of the Arab existence on this land, offering our own children?
Five minutes by foot from the Chorda Bridge, dozens of almond trees and hundreds of wildflowers bloom for perhaps the last time. Lifta, which did not become an exclusive artists village like Ein Karem or Ein Hod, stands in its unique desolation, with homes whose roofs were blasted off by the army.
Perhaps it is precisely at the feet of this giant Tower of Babel, that sparkles day and night, that the anemones will continue to blossom as they did last week. A small village, where Jews and Arabs will sit together in the cafe. One place where Israelis can acknowledge the misfortune of the Palestinian people, apologize and explore paths to future coexistence. Until peace is achieved we could ask the people of Lifta, many of whom are civil engineers, architects and contractors, to preserve the village and carry out minimal reinforcement of its homes while drawing up a blueprint for the future.
So long as there is no dialogue between Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem over the city's future, every new building plan is the destruction of hope. From the local zoning committee's recommendation on new construction in Sheikh Jarrah-Umm Haroun earlier this month to the Lifta plan, the trend of building on Palestinian land must stop. Jerusalemites protected Gazelle Valley; perhaps we can also preserve Lifta, in its present, green and beautiful state, for future generations?
Monday, February 28, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Reclaiming Lifta
The fate of a desolate Arab village hangs in the balance.
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN - 17/02/11 The Jerusalem Post
For six years a proposal has been lying dormant in the planning department at Kikar Safra.
Plan 6036 was approved in 2005 to develop the land in Lifta, a deserted Arab village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. The planning maps and documents are kept in a large gray cardboard box.
There are a dozen of them printed on laminated poster-size sheets, detailing all aspects of the 212 luxury homes that the architects envision being built at the site. The plans incorporate the vestiges of the village, which include 55 historic buildings, preserving their facades and incorporating them into the new homes that will all be perched on the hillside overlooking the spring and stream below. The famous spring will be left intact.
Lifta is an exceptional environment, an entire ruined Arab village being reclaimed, slowly, by nature. For years Lifta was an oddity, clinging precariously to the hillsides near Route 1 that leads to Jerusalem. It became a hiking spot, a mikve for haredi youth and a hangout for drug users who sometimes squatted in the abandoned buildings.
The latest plans for Lifta were drawn up by architects Shlomo Aronson, Kobi Kartes and Shmuel Groag. Aronson was born in Haifa in 1936 and studied at the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard. An influential landscape architect, he has designed projects such as the new American Consulate and portions of Beit Guvrin archeological park, and he is the author of Making Peace with Land: Designing Israel’s Landscape.
Itzik Schweky, director of the Jerusalem district of the Council for the Preservation of Historic Sites, contends that the plan is a good one. “The plan now is better than what was… Without active preservation, the rocks will continue to be stolen, the building slowly degraded and ruined by visitors.”
But not everyone is so upbeat. Eitan Bronstein, spokesman for Zochrot, an organization dedicated to preserving the memory of Arab villages in Israel, is up in arms. “It looks like they mean business this time.
Soon they will destroy Lifta… The destruction plan – it shouldn’t be called a preservation or development plan – will not only ruin the landscape but also the memory of the place.”
Bronstein believes that the plan is not an innocent isolated case but part of a larger drama. “This is a message to the world that Israel has no interest in reconciliation… It is destroying relations with the Palestinians.”
He argues that the village should be redesigned along the lines of what has been called a “symbol of a shared future.” This would include cooperation with the descendants of the Palestinian families who once lived there, building a museum about them and transforming the site into a place with boutique hotels and where “Jewish and Arab high school and university students visit as part of their civics courses, studying the Palestinian narrative in local history.”
Bronstein adds, “We suggest [for now] not to touch it. We think it could be rebuilt for the refugees.”
Yacoub Odeh, a Palestinian human rights activist involved in the struggle for land and housing, recalls growing up in Lifta. “I remember exactly my classroom in the school. You entered from the west, and there was a big olive garden and rocks, and we used to play on them all the way home.”
Odeh was born in 1940 in Lifta, in the house closest to the spring. In 1947, after several villagers were killed in the initial stages of the war, he fled with the rest of the villagers. He worked in Kuwait for several years, and in east Jerusalem he was a teacher before 1967. “There were more than 3,000 of us in 1948; now we are more than 35,000 and we have charitable organizations in Jerusalem and Amman. Just in Jerusalem there are at least 5,000 of us living here with blue ID [Israeli] cards.”
Odeh is determined in his efforts to preserve the memory of his village and return to it. He visits as often as he can, sometimes two or three times a month. He is insistent on pointing out the injustice and ironies of the situation.
“The village that was not destroyed in the time of war should not be destroyed in a time of peace… To build on it means to destroy it. No one has the authority to sell its land nor to demolish, not to build on it. Leave it for the time being until the goal of return is realized.”
But what if the people from Lifta got together and bought the plots currently being sold under the plan, like Basher al-Masri wanted to do at Nof Zion? Odeh says that he would not consider purchasing his own house back.
Avi Margolin, a licensed tour guide, has frequented the site for seven years and is passionate about Lifta.
Sporting an Australian bush hat, he surveys Lifta from the pedestrian walkway that crosses Route 1. “It is a nice place to go, except that it attracts a very haredi crowd, unlike the other springs in the Jerusalem area. In terms of its natural beauty, it is hard to beat.
If they develop it as an Ein Kerem type place, the character of the spring will change. It won’t be a relaxing place to go, to bathe and barbecue.”
He says, “The city should focus its energy on keeping the place clean and enforcing the law there to make it a more family-friendly environment. They should develop the trails around it and encourage people to go there. The last thing they need to do is put luxury houses there. It is better to develop it like a nature reserve like at Ein Yael [near the Jerusalem Zoo].”
Architecture researcher Michal Moshe did her MA thesis, entitled “Pattern of the Arab Village in the Judean Hills: Lifta Case Study,” at the Hebrew University in 2000. Her main concern with the project is the depth of the preservation. “There is no way to preserve something without understanding how it was used. Architects look at the details; but if they don’t investigate the how, it won’t be authentic but only an artificial preservation.”
For instance, “There are some buildings there that are ruined but were constructed in the 18th century.
They should try to reconstruct and use the older stones of these buildings so the preservation also shows the village in its stages,” not merely the most well-preserved newer homes.
Lifta is a story that reminds one of Mark Twain’s witticism: “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” A March 2000 report by the pro- Palestinian Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem claimed, “Israel destroys Lifta artifacts to build a resort for wealthy Jewish immigrants.” The latest plan is not the first one to develop Lifta. The question is whether it will be the last.
The fate of a desolate Arab village hangs in the balance.
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN - 17/02/11 The Jerusalem Post
For six years a proposal has been lying dormant in the planning department at Kikar Safra.
Plan 6036 was approved in 2005 to develop the land in Lifta, a deserted Arab village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. The planning maps and documents are kept in a large gray cardboard box.
There are a dozen of them printed on laminated poster-size sheets, detailing all aspects of the 212 luxury homes that the architects envision being built at the site. The plans incorporate the vestiges of the village, which include 55 historic buildings, preserving their facades and incorporating them into the new homes that will all be perched on the hillside overlooking the spring and stream below. The famous spring will be left intact.
Lifta is an exceptional environment, an entire ruined Arab village being reclaimed, slowly, by nature. For years Lifta was an oddity, clinging precariously to the hillsides near Route 1 that leads to Jerusalem. It became a hiking spot, a mikve for haredi youth and a hangout for drug users who sometimes squatted in the abandoned buildings.
The latest plans for Lifta were drawn up by architects Shlomo Aronson, Kobi Kartes and Shmuel Groag. Aronson was born in Haifa in 1936 and studied at the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard. An influential landscape architect, he has designed projects such as the new American Consulate and portions of Beit Guvrin archeological park, and he is the author of Making Peace with Land: Designing Israel’s Landscape.
Itzik Schweky, director of the Jerusalem district of the Council for the Preservation of Historic Sites, contends that the plan is a good one. “The plan now is better than what was… Without active preservation, the rocks will continue to be stolen, the building slowly degraded and ruined by visitors.”
But not everyone is so upbeat. Eitan Bronstein, spokesman for Zochrot, an organization dedicated to preserving the memory of Arab villages in Israel, is up in arms. “It looks like they mean business this time.
Soon they will destroy Lifta… The destruction plan – it shouldn’t be called a preservation or development plan – will not only ruin the landscape but also the memory of the place.”
Bronstein believes that the plan is not an innocent isolated case but part of a larger drama. “This is a message to the world that Israel has no interest in reconciliation… It is destroying relations with the Palestinians.”
He argues that the village should be redesigned along the lines of what has been called a “symbol of a shared future.” This would include cooperation with the descendants of the Palestinian families who once lived there, building a museum about them and transforming the site into a place with boutique hotels and where “Jewish and Arab high school and university students visit as part of their civics courses, studying the Palestinian narrative in local history.”
Bronstein adds, “We suggest [for now] not to touch it. We think it could be rebuilt for the refugees.”
Yacoub Odeh, a Palestinian human rights activist involved in the struggle for land and housing, recalls growing up in Lifta. “I remember exactly my classroom in the school. You entered from the west, and there was a big olive garden and rocks, and we used to play on them all the way home.”
Odeh was born in 1940 in Lifta, in the house closest to the spring. In 1947, after several villagers were killed in the initial stages of the war, he fled with the rest of the villagers. He worked in Kuwait for several years, and in east Jerusalem he was a teacher before 1967. “There were more than 3,000 of us in 1948; now we are more than 35,000 and we have charitable organizations in Jerusalem and Amman. Just in Jerusalem there are at least 5,000 of us living here with blue ID [Israeli] cards.”
Odeh is determined in his efforts to preserve the memory of his village and return to it. He visits as often as he can, sometimes two or three times a month. He is insistent on pointing out the injustice and ironies of the situation.
“The village that was not destroyed in the time of war should not be destroyed in a time of peace… To build on it means to destroy it. No one has the authority to sell its land nor to demolish, not to build on it. Leave it for the time being until the goal of return is realized.”
But what if the people from Lifta got together and bought the plots currently being sold under the plan, like Basher al-Masri wanted to do at Nof Zion? Odeh says that he would not consider purchasing his own house back.
Avi Margolin, a licensed tour guide, has frequented the site for seven years and is passionate about Lifta.
Sporting an Australian bush hat, he surveys Lifta from the pedestrian walkway that crosses Route 1. “It is a nice place to go, except that it attracts a very haredi crowd, unlike the other springs in the Jerusalem area. In terms of its natural beauty, it is hard to beat.
If they develop it as an Ein Kerem type place, the character of the spring will change. It won’t be a relaxing place to go, to bathe and barbecue.”
He says, “The city should focus its energy on keeping the place clean and enforcing the law there to make it a more family-friendly environment. They should develop the trails around it and encourage people to go there. The last thing they need to do is put luxury houses there. It is better to develop it like a nature reserve like at Ein Yael [near the Jerusalem Zoo].”
Architecture researcher Michal Moshe did her MA thesis, entitled “Pattern of the Arab Village in the Judean Hills: Lifta Case Study,” at the Hebrew University in 2000. Her main concern with the project is the depth of the preservation. “There is no way to preserve something without understanding how it was used. Architects look at the details; but if they don’t investigate the how, it won’t be authentic but only an artificial preservation.”
For instance, “There are some buildings there that are ruined but were constructed in the 18th century.
They should try to reconstruct and use the older stones of these buildings so the preservation also shows the village in its stages,” not merely the most well-preserved newer homes.
Lifta is a story that reminds one of Mark Twain’s witticism: “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” A March 2000 report by the pro- Palestinian Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem claimed, “Israel destroys Lifta artifacts to build a resort for wealthy Jewish immigrants.” The latest plan is not the first one to develop Lifta. The question is whether it will be the last.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Zochrot will have a tour of Lifta. Please attend if your are in the region.
The tour was postponed in one week exactly (all the other details stays the same), due to the weather. We apologize for any inconvenient that was caused. Please register to receive notification in case the tour will have to be postpone again: send your name and cellphone number to Efrat: efrat.even-tzur@mail.huji.ac.il
Transportation from Paris Square (Terra Sancta), next to the Kings Hotel in Jerusalem at 8:30 AM, is available for those registering by Wednesday, February 16.
When: 18/02/2011 09:00-12:00
Where: Start at the Upper entrance of Lifta
The village of Lifta, at the entrance to Jerusalem, was attacked a number of times during the Nakba in 1948 and was emptied of its inhabitants. They were not allowed to return even though they continued to live in the area. Some still live today in nearby Jerusalem neighborhoods.
Lifta is one of the few Palestinian villages in which many buildings remained standing. About two weeks ago the Israel Lands Administration published a tender offering lots for sale in the village. If the plan is implemented, Lifta will be demolished and an expensive neighborhood established in its place.
As part of the Jerusalem Nakba study group, we will conduct a tour of Lifta on Friday, 11 February 2011, led by Yaqub Ouda, a resident of Jerusalem who was born in the village. He’ll describe life in the village, its forced abandonment, and what the village’s refugees think about the construction plans.
The tour will be conducted in English, and is open to the public.
Here’s a link to recent article in Hebrew about the plan
The tour will begin at 9AM at the upper entrance to Lifta, and will end approximately at 12 noon.
By car: Take Begin Boulevard past the Golda Meir interchange. Pass the Electric Company’s facility. Turn right before the Giv’at Shaul interchange. There’s a small sign to “Mei Naftoah.”
Transportation from Paris Square (Terra Sancta), next to the Kings Hotel in Jerusalem at 8:30 AM, is available for those registering by Wednesday, February 9.
To register send your name and cellphone number to Efrat:
efrat.even-tzur@mail.huji.ac.il
Or by phone: 052/612-3965
The tour was postponed in one week exactly (all the other details stays the same), due to the weather. We apologize for any inconvenient that was caused. Please register to receive notification in case the tour will have to be postpone again: send your name and cellphone number to Efrat: efrat.even-tzur@mail.huji.ac.il
Transportation from Paris Square (Terra Sancta), next to the Kings Hotel in Jerusalem at 8:30 AM, is available for those registering by Wednesday, February 16.
When: 18/02/2011 09:00-12:00
Where: Start at the Upper entrance of Lifta
The village of Lifta, at the entrance to Jerusalem, was attacked a number of times during the Nakba in 1948 and was emptied of its inhabitants. They were not allowed to return even though they continued to live in the area. Some still live today in nearby Jerusalem neighborhoods.
Lifta is one of the few Palestinian villages in which many buildings remained standing. About two weeks ago the Israel Lands Administration published a tender offering lots for sale in the village. If the plan is implemented, Lifta will be demolished and an expensive neighborhood established in its place.
As part of the Jerusalem Nakba study group, we will conduct a tour of Lifta on Friday, 11 February 2011, led by Yaqub Ouda, a resident of Jerusalem who was born in the village. He’ll describe life in the village, its forced abandonment, and what the village’s refugees think about the construction plans.
The tour will be conducted in English, and is open to the public.
Here’s a link to recent article in Hebrew about the plan
The tour will begin at 9AM at the upper entrance to Lifta, and will end approximately at 12 noon.
By car: Take Begin Boulevard past the Golda Meir interchange. Pass the Electric Company’s facility. Turn right before the Giv’at Shaul interchange. There’s a small sign to “Mei Naftoah.”
Transportation from Paris Square (Terra Sancta), next to the Kings Hotel in Jerusalem at 8:30 AM, is available for those registering by Wednesday, February 9.
To register send your name and cellphone number to Efrat:
efrat.even-tzur@mail.huji.ac.il
Or by phone: 052/612-3965
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
The Lifta that never will be
Instead of building luxury homes over the abandoned village, Israel could use the hillside ruins to preserve Arab memory and heal a rift. Don't hold your breath
By Esther Zandberg, Haaretz - 3/02/11
The first Arab residents have begun to enter their new homes in the village of Lifta at the western approach to Jerusalem. Many of them are descendants of Palestinian families who lived there until the eve of the Israeli War of Independence in 1948. When they left the village, it remained abandoned for decades and its ruins became a symbol of the destruction of the Palestinian community in Israel.
The village has been reconstructed according to a building plan advanced by the Israel Lands Administration in cooperation with residents' families. The streets teem with life and tourism and commerce are flourishing; boutique hotels, bed-and-breakfasts, souvenir shops and a colorful market have opened.
The old mosque has been rebuilt. Fifty-five historical buildings have been restored and converted to new uses. One of them serves as a historical museum.
Jewish and Arab high school and university students visit as part of their civics courses, studying the Palestinian narrative in local history. The newer buildings are constructed in a blend of the many different styles characteristic of Arab communities, and more than a little of their traditional character was lost. But even the strictest adherents of preservation admit that the historical justice carried out here was worth the price. On second thought, it is a kind of authenticity in itself and a thread that connects history to our time.
None of this ever happened nor will it ever; it does not jibe with current Israeli reality.
The Israel Lands Administration has in fact advanced a new building plan for the decade, and has just issued a tender for the acquisition of plots of land in Lifta. But this plan is light years away from the vision above, and chances that descendants of refugees from Lifta will ever step foot there are nil.
The plan calls for 212 apartments and a commercial and tourist center; it will turn into a luxury complex in the style of David's Village in Mamilla or the Yemin Moshe artists colony.
Although it is termed a preservation effort, it is in effect, paradoxically, an erasure of all memory of the original village. And there is also no chance that a Palestinian museum will be erected there.
Urban building plan number 6036 for the ruins of the village was authorized about five years ago after opposition by a number of non-profit groups, including Zochrot and Bimkom, was rejected. They called on the village to be developed as a preserve of Palestinian memory and in this way contribute to reconciliation between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel. In its opposition to the plan, Bimkom emphasized every nation's right to memory, and wrote that the issues of preservation and memory "should be the basis of common cultural knowledge for every element of the population in Israel."
But all of this is a distant dream. Unlike the designers' fantasies, the voices of village refugees and their families were not heard at the discussion of the plan, which was not meant for them from the beginning. Many of them live in East Jerusalem, not far from the homes they were not allowed to return to, and where they are to this day not allowed to build homes.
Frozen memory
Lifta is a place frozen in time. It is unpopulated and has not turned into an artists' colony, like Ein Hod or Old Jaffa. The core of the village remains almost in its entirety, with dozens of original buildings and a landscape which has not been covered with JNF forests, and not styled by landscape architects - the fate now expected to befall the village according to the new plan.
Behind all this beauty lies all the elements of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the refugee problem, the demand for the right of return, denial of memory and so on.
The building plan for Lifta cannot be considered innocent. There is no reason to slaughter this beautiful piece of land for 200 homes for the rich; it answers no vital need and does not solve any of the housing problems in Jerusalem, and it will not contribute to reconciliation, but rather deepen the conflict and erase more proof that someone was here before us.
The only justification for the development of Lifta, and it too sounds like a fantasy today, is building that will serve Palestinian refugees and create a kind of historical justice with a symbol, a tribute.
This kind of effort would also be political and perhaps lack planning logic, but justice and ethics and the chance to turn the village from a memorial to destruction into a symbol of a shared future stand in its favor.
Because such an alternative is out of the question, there is nothing left to do but act to stop the plan, and raise funds to do the necessary work to strengthen existing buildings until a suitable solution is found.
It is to be hoped that such funds will be sufficient for an investigatory commission. This is the place to repeat the conclusions of the Or Commission on the events of September 2000, quoted by Bimkom in its opposition to the building plan and more relevant now than ever.
"The establishment of the state of Israel, which the Jewish people celebrated as the realization of the dream of generations, is connected to [the Palestinians'] historic memory, the most difficult trauma in their history, the Nakba," the Or Commission report said. "The programs and symbols of the state are also anchored in law that praises the victory in the conflict ... which is seen by the Arab minority as a defeat. It is appropriate to find ways to strengthen Arab citizens' feeling of belonging to the nation without hurting their connection to their culture and community."
Instead of building luxury homes over the abandoned village, Israel could use the hillside ruins to preserve Arab memory and heal a rift. Don't hold your breath
By Esther Zandberg, Haaretz - 3/02/11
The first Arab residents have begun to enter their new homes in the village of Lifta at the western approach to Jerusalem. Many of them are descendants of Palestinian families who lived there until the eve of the Israeli War of Independence in 1948. When they left the village, it remained abandoned for decades and its ruins became a symbol of the destruction of the Palestinian community in Israel.
The village has been reconstructed according to a building plan advanced by the Israel Lands Administration in cooperation with residents' families. The streets teem with life and tourism and commerce are flourishing; boutique hotels, bed-and-breakfasts, souvenir shops and a colorful market have opened.
The old mosque has been rebuilt. Fifty-five historical buildings have been restored and converted to new uses. One of them serves as a historical museum.
Jewish and Arab high school and university students visit as part of their civics courses, studying the Palestinian narrative in local history. The newer buildings are constructed in a blend of the many different styles characteristic of Arab communities, and more than a little of their traditional character was lost. But even the strictest adherents of preservation admit that the historical justice carried out here was worth the price. On second thought, it is a kind of authenticity in itself and a thread that connects history to our time.
None of this ever happened nor will it ever; it does not jibe with current Israeli reality.
The Israel Lands Administration has in fact advanced a new building plan for the decade, and has just issued a tender for the acquisition of plots of land in Lifta. But this plan is light years away from the vision above, and chances that descendants of refugees from Lifta will ever step foot there are nil.
The plan calls for 212 apartments and a commercial and tourist center; it will turn into a luxury complex in the style of David's Village in Mamilla or the Yemin Moshe artists colony.
Although it is termed a preservation effort, it is in effect, paradoxically, an erasure of all memory of the original village. And there is also no chance that a Palestinian museum will be erected there.
Urban building plan number 6036 for the ruins of the village was authorized about five years ago after opposition by a number of non-profit groups, including Zochrot and Bimkom, was rejected. They called on the village to be developed as a preserve of Palestinian memory and in this way contribute to reconciliation between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel. In its opposition to the plan, Bimkom emphasized every nation's right to memory, and wrote that the issues of preservation and memory "should be the basis of common cultural knowledge for every element of the population in Israel."
But all of this is a distant dream. Unlike the designers' fantasies, the voices of village refugees and their families were not heard at the discussion of the plan, which was not meant for them from the beginning. Many of them live in East Jerusalem, not far from the homes they were not allowed to return to, and where they are to this day not allowed to build homes.
Frozen memory
Lifta is a place frozen in time. It is unpopulated and has not turned into an artists' colony, like Ein Hod or Old Jaffa. The core of the village remains almost in its entirety, with dozens of original buildings and a landscape which has not been covered with JNF forests, and not styled by landscape architects - the fate now expected to befall the village according to the new plan.
Behind all this beauty lies all the elements of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the refugee problem, the demand for the right of return, denial of memory and so on.
The building plan for Lifta cannot be considered innocent. There is no reason to slaughter this beautiful piece of land for 200 homes for the rich; it answers no vital need and does not solve any of the housing problems in Jerusalem, and it will not contribute to reconciliation, but rather deepen the conflict and erase more proof that someone was here before us.
The only justification for the development of Lifta, and it too sounds like a fantasy today, is building that will serve Palestinian refugees and create a kind of historical justice with a symbol, a tribute.
This kind of effort would also be political and perhaps lack planning logic, but justice and ethics and the chance to turn the village from a memorial to destruction into a symbol of a shared future stand in its favor.
Because such an alternative is out of the question, there is nothing left to do but act to stop the plan, and raise funds to do the necessary work to strengthen existing buildings until a suitable solution is found.
It is to be hoped that such funds will be sufficient for an investigatory commission. This is the place to repeat the conclusions of the Or Commission on the events of September 2000, quoted by Bimkom in its opposition to the building plan and more relevant now than ever.
"The establishment of the state of Israel, which the Jewish people celebrated as the realization of the dream of generations, is connected to [the Palestinians'] historic memory, the most difficult trauma in their history, the Nakba," the Or Commission report said. "The programs and symbols of the state are also anchored in law that praises the victory in the conflict ... which is seen by the Arab minority as a defeat. It is appropriate to find ways to strengthen Arab citizens' feeling of belonging to the nation without hurting their connection to their culture and community."
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