Two hotels

Mark Twain's Holy Land visit of 1867, so well recorded in "Innocents Abroad," is still a valuable source of information on mid-nineteenth century Palestine. Even a casual page-through reveals that Twain complained about everything, especially the hotel accommodation. At that time low budget pilgrims were happy to rough it in church hostels; however the people that Twain travelled with expected more comfortable lodgings. The few hotels that existed then were a lot better than the hostels, but were hardly on par with their European and American counterparts. Nevertheless, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) enjoyed his two day stay at the Mediterranean Hotel in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City.. At that time the hotel was Jerusalem's cultural, social and tourist hub, a well known landmark.

A few years after Twain's visit, the Mediterranean's Christian owners sold the building to Moshe Wittenberg, a well known Jerusalem philanthropist. From then on it became Wittenberg House. More than hundred years later Ariel Sharon bought an apartment in the building and sold it a few years later.

Only recently research workers managed to identify Wittenberg House as the original Mediterranean Hotel. Therefore it's doubtful if Sharon knew about Mark Twain's stay in the same building.

By comparison the Shepherd Hotel has a shorter but more convoluted history.

In the mid-1930s the infamous Hajj Amin al-Husseini, Grand mufti of Jerusalem, began building a residence for himself in the Sheikh Jerrah neighbourhood.

The mufti's ties with Nazi Germany and his role in the Arab revolt gave the British sufficient cause to deport him. In 1937 before he left the country al-Husseini rented the unfinished building to an Arab tenant

In 1948, the house became a Jordanian army outpost and after the Six Day War it was transferred under the Absentee Property Law to the Israeli custodian of deserted properties

From 1967 to 1982 two Arab Christian families ran the property as a pilgrim’s hotel.
When one of the families went bankrupt the property was sold by the state custodian to Irving Moscowitz, a California businessman who provides the financial backing for other Jewish buildings in Jerusalem's Arab neighbourhoods.
For the next five years the building remained empty .Between 1987 and 2002 it was occupied by the Israeli Border Police who used it as a temporary district headquarters. The building has been empty since the Border Police left.

In November 2008. Moscowitz submitted a plan to replace the hotel with over 100 apartment units for Jewish families. The plans were later scaled down to 20 units to avoid a lengthy approval process, since the area was previously zoned for 20 residential units.

The demolition carried out at the site earlier this week, an act that evoked local and international condemnation, involved only a part of the hotel , an extension built on during the Jordanian occupancy.

At this juncture I want to add a little historical perspective.

When Mark Twain stayed in Jerusalem there was no known Sheikh Jerrah neighbourhood. There were just a few small houses and two tombs on the slopes of the hill by the Mount of Olives, really nothing to write home about.

In the latter part of the nineteenth century a small Muslim community sprang up near the tomb of Sheih Jerrah.

Husam al-Din al-Jarrahi, physician to Saladin is buried here hence the neighbourhood was named Sheikh Jerrah in his memory.

A small Jewish community was also established about the same time near another burial site, the tomb of Simon the Just , a high priest who lived in the Second Temple period.

The Jewish enclave was gradually abandoned after the Arab disturbances in the 1920s and ’30s and finally during the War of Independence.

According to an Ottoman census of 1905 Sheikh Jarrah's population numbered 167 Muslim families, 97 Jewish families, and 6 Christian families.

During the War of Independence 78 Jewish doctors and nurses were murdered when the medical convoy they were travelling in on the way to the Hadassah Hospital on Mt Scopus was ambushed when it passed through Sheikh Jarrah.

In 1956, the Jordanian government and the United Nations settled 28 Palestinian refugee families in deserted dwellings in Sheikh Jarrah.

In 1972, when Sheikh Jarrah was occupied by Israel two Israeli claimant groups commenced litigation to reclaim Jewish property there.

They demanded rent for their properties and the Israeli Supreme Court ruled in their favour.

The Palestinian tenants were allowed to remain as long as they paid rent.

In the western part of Sheikh Jarrah, close to the 1949 Armistice Line (Green Line,) lies the Shimon the Just enclave.

This area is another focal point of settler development plans in Sheikh Jarrah. 28 residential structures, currently housing descendants of 27 of the Palestinian families who arrived in 1956 (about 500 people) and 5-6 settler groups (about 30 people)

The ongoing legal battles have focused on three interrelated issues:

Legal recognition of land and building ownership

Tenancy rights of the Palestinian residents

Differential enforcement of the law regarding settlers and Palestinians living in the structures without legal recognition.

The Palestinian tenants have either reluctantly accepted the court rulings or stopped paying rent and continue to appeal to the courts.

On August 28, 2008, Nahalat Shimon International, a settler-related real estate company, filed a town plan proposal in the Jerusalem Local Planning Commission. If the plan is approved, the existing Palestinian houses in this key area will be demolished, about 500 Palestinians will be evicted, and 200 housing units will be built for a new settlement called Shimon HaTzadik. (Simon the Just). Some people have questioned the justice in evicting Palestinians from their homes and then demolishing them so that new dwellings can be constructed to house Jewish settlers. Others have questioned the wisdom of the steps involved in building the new settlement. They claim it will establish a dangerous legal precedent. Theoretically any Palestinian resident of east Jerusalem who once (before 1948) owned property in west Jerusalem will be able to reclaim it.

It’s possible that I have omitted some details and maybe in describing the sequence of events in Sheikh Jerrah my description is incomplete; however the unrelenting efforts on the part of groups determined to establish “facts on the ground” are clearly evident.

The Shimon HaTzadik plan would advance the creation of Jewish strongholds in the “historic basin” surrounding the Old City. In Sheikh Jarrah to the north, the Mount of Olives to the east and Silwan to the south, development plans aim to ring the Old City with Jewish settlements and public projects, cutting off Palestinian territorial contiguity with the Old City. These developments unilaterally create an integral population link between the Old city and west Jerusalem, strengthen Israeli control of this sensitive area, and thwart the feasibility of future agreed-upon borders for Jerusalem in the context of a two-state solution.

In recent years, settlement organisations have made great strides in the Sheikh Jarrah area, supported in part by public funding. Recently completed projects in the area include the Beit Orot Yeshiva with a number of student and teacher housing units and the adjacent Ein Tzurim National Park. Elad, the settler organisation known for its archeological and settlement activity in the City of David/Silwan is involved in running the park.

If there is an Israeli grand plan to further Jewish territorial contiguity between west Jerusalem extending through the northern and eastern suburbs on through the Jewish satellite towns and the rest of Judah and Samaria (West Bank) it is understood but not published. The plan obviously doesn’t take into consideration Palestinian efforts to maintain their own territorial contiguity affording them a foothold in Jerusalem. If the Jewish settlement projects continue unhindered by “freezes” and other means employed to slowdown further settlement expansion a quarter of a million Arabs living in east Jerusalem will be cut off from the West Bank.

Today Yediot Ahronot reported that a public opinion poll carried out by American Pechter Middle East Polls for the Council on Foreign Relations together with the head of the Palestinian Centre for Public Opinion, Dr. Nabil Kukali, showed that if Jerusalem were divided as part of a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, east Jerusalem Arabs would prefer to live under Israeli sovereignty. Some 35% of them said that Israeli citizenship is their preferred citizenship and only 30% chose to be citizens of the future Palestinian state. An additional 30% said that they didn't know, or preferred not to answer the question. I don’t know what happened to the missing 5%. Admittedly not an overwhelming clear-cut majority favoured being Israeli citizens as opposed to being Palestinian nationals.

The material benefits they enjoy had a great deal to do with their choice.

Just the same the Palestinian Authority leadership in Ramallah may not like the results and I doubt if our government does either.

Have a good weekend

Beni 13^th of January, 2011.