{"id":86318,"date":"2017-02-06T12:00:44","date_gmt":"2017-02-06T12:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=86318"},"modified":"2017-02-02T17:49:47","modified_gmt":"2017-02-02T17:49:47","slug":"inside-a-settler-run-tour-of-an-east-jerusalem-tourist-trap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/02\/inside-a-settler-run-tour-of-an-east-jerusalem-tourist-trap\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside a Settler-Run Tour of an East Jerusalem Tourist Trap"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>

Tzvi, an Elad tour guide, delivers a highly selective history of Jerusalem.<\/p><\/div>\n

1 Feb 2017 – <\/em>The so-called City of David<\/a> is a leafy promontory, running out from the southern wall of Jerusalem\u2019s Old City<\/a> to bisect the Palestinian community of Silwan<\/a>. The tourist trap and archaeological site is moments from the Western Wall, the Haram al-Sharif<\/a> and al-Aqsa mosque<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On a map near the site entrance, the City of David itself is picked out in bright colors. Surrounding Palestinian neighborhoods are faded by comparison. Another sign near the doorway, which was surrounded by Israeli school children gobbling packed lunches, claims tours are run by \u201clocal volunteers.\u201d<\/p>\n

It neglects to mention that these \u201clocal volunteers\u2019\u201d are part of the extremist settler organization Elad<\/a>. They are not drawn from the Palestinians who live in the area.<\/p>\n

Elad \u2013 a Hebrew word which means \u201cGod\u2019s eternal faith\u201d and is also an acronym for \u201cTo the City of David\u201d \u2013 has full control of the site. As the site expands under flimsy pseudo-archaeological pretexts<\/a>, Elad is able to demolish Palestinian property and infrastructure and drive Palestinians from their homes, in collusion with state authorities and backed by Israeli police muscle.<\/p>\n

Elad\u2019s City of David is largely built on land seized<\/a> from Palestinians under the absentee property law<\/a>, a 1950 directive that allowed the Israeli state to take over Palestinian property if owners were not present \u2013 because they were either abroad, as absentees, or elsewhere in Palestine as \u201cpresent absentees\u201d \u2013 following the violence that led to the creation of Israel in 1948.<\/p>\n

After Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 and unilaterally annexed the area \u2013 an annexation not recognized by any other country \u2013 all Israeli laws, including the absentee property law, were extended<\/a> to the city.<\/p>\n

And each year, 400,000 visitors<\/a> to the city are exposed to Elad\u2019s highly selective, ethnocentric version of history, privileging Zionist claims to Palestinian land.<\/p>\n

Blink and miss millennia<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thus it was that half a dozen American tourists, both Christian and Jewish, congregated at the entrance for a tour in November. As they chatted, a muezzin sang out the call to prayer from al-Aqsa mosque, just up the hill.<\/p>\n

Clad in colonial-style khaki hat and shorts, tour guide Tzvi squatted as he introduced himself to the group. \u201cOur story starts 3,000 years ago, when Hebron tribes asked David to be their king,\u201d he began. \u201cDemocracy! We invented it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Tzvi told it, Jerusalem \u201cdid not belong to any tribe\u201d when David is purported to have sacked it in 1,000 BCE. While conceding a Canaanite civilization was present in the city \u2013 referring to them as Jebusites, as per scriptural tradition \u2013 he says they were \u201cnot important.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m thinking maybe God told him to take it!\u201d chirped a tourist. No mention was made of the city\u2019s foundation back in 3,500 BCE<\/a>, or the subsequent centuries of Bronze Age civilization.<\/p>\n

The tour moved into a 3D presentation, with a 1950s educational filmstrip vibe. A holographic architect hosted the show, glancing up from a relic to feign stagey surprise at the tour\u2019s arrival: \u201cOh! Hello there!\u201d<\/p>\n

Animated Israelite soldiers crept up a water tunnel to capture the city, a version of events with no basis beyond a single line in the Bible<\/a>, but presented here as fact. \u201cA city with no justice loses its right to exist,\u201d the host intoned, as Biblical narratives played out on the screen.<\/p>\n

Following Emperor Hadrian\u2019s murderous purge<\/a> of the city\u2019s Jewish population in 135 CE, the presentation abruptly skipped over nearly 2,000 years. It did not cover later Roman and Persian rule, Jerusalem\u2019s conquest by the Arab Caliphate in 638 CE, or 14 subsequent centuries of Islamic life.<\/p>\n

Also ignored were the Crusades, Jerusalem\u2019s Christian history, and the Ottoman Empire. Blink once and Jewish families were arriving in the late 1800s: blink twice and it was 1990, with a \u201cre-established Jewish community\u201d in the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have returned to the hill where it all began,\u201d concluded the digital archaeologist in strident tones, as pictures of 20th century Israeli landmarks flashed up. \u201cBoys and girls are playing in Jerusalem\u2019s streets once again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bible in one hand<\/strong><\/p>\n

The tour group emerged into the light. From a look-out at the highest point of Elad\u2019s City of David, the presence of Palestinian boys, girls and whole communities could not be glossed over.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen David came, nothing was here,\u201d Tzvi claimed, as he pointed at a vast, ramshackle bank of Silwan houses immediately to the east.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s an Arab village which is actually part of the municipal area of Jerusalem. There are more than 20 Arab villages within Jerusalem.\u201d He chuckled. \u201cDid you know that?\u201d There was a chorus of coos and snapped pictures.<\/p>\n

Next, the tour moved down into the excavation itself. Despite being indicted<\/a> for \u201cdamaging antiquities, wilful destruction, and the disregard of court orders,\u201d Elad was handed full control of the site by the National Parks Authority in 1997. (Elad-funded workers have also been accused of destroying<\/a> Islamic archaeological finds.)<\/p>\n

<\/a>

An ongoing dig at the City of David site.<\/p><\/div>\n

This is the digging ground of Dr. Eilat Mazar, an archaeologist whose say-so is taken as gospel by Elad, and who claims to have uncovered King David\u2019s palace here in 2005. \u201cI work with the Bible in one hand and the tools of excavation in the other,\u201d she has said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Mazar brought some arguments, I won\u2019t tell them all now,\u201d Tzvi said. Appealing to the religious crowd, he showed off seals apparently bearing the name of an Old Testament official.<\/p>\n

Mainstream Israeli archaeologists are highly skeptical of Mazar\u2019s claims. \u201cHad it not been for Mazar\u2019s literal reading of the biblical text, she never would have dated the remains to the 10th century BCE with such confidence,\u201d prominent critic Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University has said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But such commentary is dismissed almost with sadness here.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people say if archaeology doesn\u2019t prove something, then the Bible must be wrong, it\u2019s just stories,\u201d said Tzvi, shaking his head. \u201cBut not all archaeologists are evil.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more they search, the more the Bible\u2019s going to be proved,\u201d a tourist said happily. \u201cSome want to disprove, and some want to prove.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wasteland, maybe<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a>

An Israeli flag hangs from a home taken over by settlers in the heart of Silwan.<\/p><\/div>\n

The group then waded through the trip\u2019s main attraction, a navigable subterranean waterway known as Hezekiah\u2019s Tunnel, and damply emerged for a final Q&A session.<\/p>\n

When asked who exactly had built on top of the site in the intervening two millennia of history, Tzvi grew cagey: \u201cHere was nothing. Wasteland, maybe. I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

His answer neatly encapsulated the deliberate omissions at the heart of these tours. Credulous tour-takers swallowing Elad\u2019s narrative will leave with the sense Jerusalem stood empty for centuries until Zionist settlers returned to reclaim it. The constant Arab presence encompassing centuries of culture, conflict and religious tolerance<\/a> is ignored.<\/p>\n

And nor do the tours cover what is happening around Jerusalem today.<\/p>\n

Sahar Abbasi works in the Wadi Hilweh Information Center<\/a>, a community organization whose modest offices stand in the shadows of Elad\u2019s City of David.<\/p>\n

Here the focus is vastly different and the concerns acute. \u201cWe are not talking about history or heritage: we are talking about compulsory transfer,\u201d Abbasi told The Electronic Intifada.<\/p>\n

Elad\u2019s aim, stated explicitly in 1998<\/a> and evident in practice ever since, is to \u201cJudaize East Jerusalem\u201d by driving out Palestinians and parachuting in Jewish Israelis. Settler homes draped in Israeli flags stud Silwan, their Palestinian owners often forced out by Elad\u2019s exploitation<\/a> of Israel\u2019s discriminatory absentee property law.<\/p>\n

These transfers are illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention<\/a>, which forbids occupying powers from transferring its civilians into occupied territory.<\/p>\n

Others have been forced to leave their homes<\/a> to make way for the dubious expansion of Elad digs<\/a>. (Even Elad\u2019s favorite archaeologist Mazar has slammed<\/a> a recent City of David excavation as a \u201ctourism gimmick\u201d flouting good archaeological practice.)<\/p>\n

Targeting the locals<\/strong><\/p>\n

The destruction of land<\/a> and community centers<\/a> in Silwan is also directly linked<\/a> to Elad\u2019s City of David and the wider Jerusalem Walls National Park, in what Abbasi called a \u201cwell-planned, systematic agenda\u201d of expansion.<\/p>\n

Elad is abetted by the Israeli state<\/a>, which systematically sells the organization occupied land at rock-bottom prices.<\/p>\n

More broadly, Abbasi linked the arrests, beatings and violent abuse<\/a> suffered by Silwan\u2019s children to the loss of land and livelihood driven by Elad. The group operates in collusion<\/a> with Israeli militarized forces.<\/p>\n

In 2010, Elad chief David Be\u2019eri<\/a> ran over<\/a> two Palestinian children during a rock-throwing incident in Silwan. Both survived.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Demolitions] are a municipality job, but still we find Nature and Parks Authority people there, Elad people, all being protected by police and soldiers,\u201d Abbasi said. (Elad also runs special tours for Israeli soldiers.)<\/p>\n

<\/a>

Muhammad Ja\u2019abees had to destroy his own home, leaving him and his children without proper shelter.<\/p><\/div>\n

As with an estimated 20,000<\/a> Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem, Muhammad Ja\u2019abees<\/a> was unable to secure municipal permission to build his home thanks to tortuous Israeli planning regulations targeting Palestinians. The unemployed 32-year-old, whose house was a five-minute drive from the City of David, was forced to destroy his house with his own hands in November 2016 rather than pay an expensive and cruel fee. It\u2019s a common tactic<\/a> employed by Israeli officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe municipal authorities kept trying to pay me off [by purchasing the house] and I said no, no,\u201d he told The Electronic Intifada. \u201cEventually they said I was going to pay.\u201d<\/p>\n

He and his preschool-aged children now sleep rough under a tarpaulin amid the rubble of their former home. Though not directly at the behest of Elad, the demolition formed part of the campaign of Judaization the settler organization is pushing in the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to destroy my own home,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd [doing so] destroyed me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thou shalt not bear false witness<\/strong><\/p>\n

Elad\u2019s City of David National Park is only minutes from the wasteland where Muhammad\u2019s family huddles at night. But few of the tourists it hosts will ever see the destruction Elad wreaks in Palestinian communities.<\/p>\n

Alongside ticket sales from its massive tourist franchise, which encompasses similar archaeological experiences and tours across East Jerusalem, Elad rakes in more foreign donations<\/a> than the seven largest left-wing Israeli nongovernmental organizations combined. Some of this cash is being used to build a gleaming new visitors center<\/a>, standing seven stories high.<\/p>\n

Palestinian businesses have been demolished and archaeological sites placed at risk to create an air-conditioned walkway conveying tourists from the Old City to the City of David without the risk of meeting a Palestinian.<\/p>\n

Elad\u2019s sphere of influence is expanding: it recently won control of the Jerusalem Archaeological Park<\/a>, alongside the Western Wall plaza in the heart of Jerusalem\u2019s Old City.<\/p>\n

Unchallenged, Elad\u2019s ethnocentric revision of history will continue to legitimize Israel\u2019s illegal occupation of East Jerusalem in the eyes of millions of tourists.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe brought many important laws to the world,\u201d Tzvi told his visitors that November day in Elad\u2019s City of David. \u201cWho knows the ninth commandment? It was my mother\u2019s favorite. Don\u2019t tell lies, ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/p>\n

All photos by Matt Broomfield.<\/em><\/p>\n

Matt Broomfield is a freelance journalist currently working in London. He regularly reports for<\/em> The Independent and writes for <\/em>VICE,<\/em> Dazed and <\/em>Activist Media, as well as publishing poetry and fiction. Twitter: @hashtagbroom<\/a>. Website: mattbroomfield.contently.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 electronicintifada.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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