In mid-February 2024, just days before the Jerusalem municipal elections, police forces arrived to demolish the home of Fakhri Abu Diab in the Al-Bustan neighborhood of Silwan. Fakhri Abu Diab is a well-known social activist in East Jerusalem and a leading figure in the struggle against the demolition of the Al-Bustan neighborhood.
Unlike most home demolitions, where residents receive no prior notice, this time Fakhri and the media were informed in advance. It seems that municipal and/or national politicians found it important to showcase the demolition of a home belonging to one of the leaders of the Palestinian struggle in East Jerusalem as part of their efforts to combat unauthorized Palestinian construction and strengthen Israeli sovereignty in the city.
The demolitions in Al-Bustan did not stop with Fakhri’s home. Since the U.S. elections on November 5, there has been a marked increase in the number of demolitions in the neighborhood. Between Election Day and mid-November, eight structures were demolished in the area. While home demolitions in East Jerusalem are occurring across Palestinian neighborhoods, the war in Gaza has seen a sharp rise in their frequency. However, the case of Al-Bustan has unique political and social characteristics with long-term implications for the future of Jerusalem as the capital of both Israel and Palestine.
Peace Now’s Solidarity Visit at Fakhri Abu Diab Demolished House, 01.11.24
Blocking a Building Plan and the Struggle for the Neighborhood
The Silwan and Old City Basin Master Plan (Directive of Plan #9), approved in 1977, established construction guidelines for the Old City Basin and the neighborhoods surrounding it to the south and east, including Al-Bustan. The plan prioritized the preservation of the historic fabric of the Old City Basin while largely neglecting the needs of its residents. Among other provisions, the plan designated the Al-Bustan area as a public open space where residential construction is prohibited, making it difficult for local residents to build homes on their private land.
Today, Al-Bustan is home to approximately 100 houses, housing about 1,000 residents.
In 2005, the municipality issued demolition orders for nearly 100 houses in the neighborhood. In response, residents began working on a master plan to regularize and preserve their homes. They engaged in prolonged negotiations with the municipality and initiated exhausting legal proceedings to prevent the demolitions. These demolition orders drew both local and international pressure, which temporarily stalled the demolitions. However, in 2009, the planning committees rejected the residents’ proposed master plan (Plan No. 11641).
The King’s Garden Plan: Tourism as a Pretext for Displacement
In 2010, then-Mayor of Jerusalem Nir Barkat advanced the “King’s Garden” plan, which sought to evacuate Al-Bustan and establish an orchard reminiscent of the biblical King’s Garden (Plan No. 18000). The plan is based on a biblical tradition identifying King Solomon’s Garden at the current site of Al-Bustan. It is important to note that this identification lacks archaeological or historical evidence, and most scholars propose alternative locations for the biblical King’s Garden.
The King’s Garden plan is part of a broader government plan to develop tourism and reshape public spaces in and around the Old City. It aims to create a continuous chain of tourist sites extending from the Old City to the archaeological site of the City of David, through the “King’s Garden” in Al-Bustan, and on to the Hinnom Valley. In this entire area, construction or development for Palestinian needs is prohibited, and the tourist sites are operated by the settler organization Elad.
Al-Bustan neighborhood effectively “blocks” the completion of the tourism corridor that the government and settlers aim to establish around the Old City.
Map of Parks Surrounding the Old City as Part of the Government Plan: “King’s Garden” Refers to the Al-Bustan Neighborhood.
At the time, Nir Barkat attempted to present the plan he was advancing as a fair solution to the issue: while the homes would indeed be demolished to make way for a tourist park, the plan would also allow residents to construct multi-story buildings on a limited area adjacent to the park.
It is crucial to emphasize that the municipality’s plan does not guarantee alternative housing for the families set to be displaced. Instead, it suggests that residents build new homes themselves (at their own expense) on properties belonging to other residents or on private land owned by others, whose homes are also slated for demolition. In practice, the only actionable element of the plan is the demolition of the residents’ homes, while constructing alternative housing remains extremely difficult, if not impossible, to implement.
Simulation of the King’s Garden plan by the municipality (Plan 18000).
Al-Bustan Neighborhood in 2024: Signs of What’s to Come
Nir Barkat’s plan was ultimately not advanced.
Due to international pressure, primarily from the United States, very few buildings were demolished in Al-Bustan following the issuance of demolition orders in 2005. There were isolated cases of demolition in 2021 when authorities destroyed a shop and a residential building.
Efforts by residents to promote a plan that would legalize their homes (Plan No. 693440) continued. However, the municipality recently announced its rejection of the residents’ proposal.
In the past year, at least nine buildings have been demolished in the neighborhood, eight of them in the past two weeks alone. These demolitions have left dozens of Palestinian residents homeless. The scale of the demolitions raises concerns that the Israeli government and Jerusalem Municipality intend to fully implement the “King’s Garden” plan without considering reasonable and fair solutions for the neighborhood’s residents. The timing of these demolitions strengthens the perception that Donald Trump’s election as U.S. President and the new administration are seen in Israel as an opportunity to establish facts on the ground. These actions aim to create a buffer zone around the Old City Basin, controlled by settlers, while displacing Palestinian residents.
It appears that with Trump’s election, the struggle over East Jerusalem has intensified. The primary victims are the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, as well as all those who aspire to peace through the vision of two states for two peoples.