PA Islamic-Christian Council: Planned “biblical parks” in Jerusalem are projects of “Judaization,” meant to cut off Arab neighborhoods and to compensate for lack of Jewish history
Headline: “The [PA] Islamic-Christian Council: The biblical parks are among the most dangerous projects of Judaization of the holy city”
“The [PA] Islamic-Christian Council [for Jerusalem and the Holy Places] said that ‘The biblical gardens, for whose establishment the occupation authorities are expropriating lands in Issawiya, Silwan, and the Golden Gate [area] of occupied Jerusalem, are among the most dangerous projects for the holy city [of Jerusalem]…
[Secretary-General of the PA Islamic-Christian Council] Dr. [Hassan] Khater… said that… the matter of the parks is a flexible idea, by which the occupation authorities can take over an amount of land as they wish and expand it as they wish, while the building of settlement housing units – [which is] the most common style of taking over land – always requires settlers, and that is a matter that the occupation authorities… can no longer guarantee in many places.
He said that the establishment of these parks allows the occupation authorities to cut off the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem from the Old City [of Jerusalem] and from the sites holy to Islam and Christianity located in it, in addition to cutting these neighborhoods off from each other, and preventing them from the possibility of expanding. He clarified that giving the names ‘biblical parks’ to this type of settlement, ‘marketing’ them on this basis, and the attempt to build these parks based on inspiration from the Bible, is a dangerous matter meant from its inception to compensate for the complete failure of the Israeli authorities to discover any Jewish remnants in the holy city during more than 40 years of ongoing searches (sic., numerous Jewish archaeological artifacts have been discovered).
Dr. Khater said that Jerusalem is a religious city, and the tourism there is only religious, and therefore the occupation authorities plan to take over this tourism through these parks, which gives them a religious presence in the city that has no historical or archeological cover. Dr. Khater considers this the most remarkable and strange type of deception about religion, history, and peoples’ rights in modern times.
The secretary-general of the Islamic-Christian Council demanded that all the international institutions… act to prevent the occupation authorities from carrying out their new crimes against Jerusalem and its religious and cultural identity. He said that the construction of these parks is a direct and overt forgery of the geographic identity of Jerusalem and of the history of the holy city, and a great and dangerous deception of the peoples and the modern human cultures.”
“The [PA] Islamic-Christian Council [for Jerusalem and the Holy Places] said that ‘The biblical gardens, for whose establishment the occupation authorities are expropriating lands in Issawiya, Silwan, and the Golden Gate [area] of occupied Jerusalem, are among the most dangerous projects for the holy city [of Jerusalem]…
[Secretary-General of the PA Islamic-Christian Council] Dr. [Hassan] Khater… said that… the matter of the parks is a flexible idea, by which the occupation authorities can take over an amount of land as they wish and expand it as they wish, while the building of settlement housing units – [which is] the most common style of taking over land – always requires settlers, and that is a matter that the occupation authorities… can no longer guarantee in many places.
He said that the establishment of these parks allows the occupation authorities to cut off the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem from the Old City [of Jerusalem] and from the sites holy to Islam and Christianity located in it, in addition to cutting these neighborhoods off from each other, and preventing them from the possibility of expanding. He clarified that giving the names ‘biblical parks’ to this type of settlement, ‘marketing’ them on this basis, and the attempt to build these parks based on inspiration from the Bible, is a dangerous matter meant from its inception to compensate for the complete failure of the Israeli authorities to discover any Jewish remnants in the holy city during more than 40 years of ongoing searches (sic., numerous Jewish archaeological artifacts have been discovered).
Dr. Khater said that Jerusalem is a religious city, and the tourism there is only religious, and therefore the occupation authorities plan to take over this tourism through these parks, which gives them a religious presence in the city that has no historical or archeological cover. Dr. Khater considers this the most remarkable and strange type of deception about religion, history, and peoples’ rights in modern times.
The secretary-general of the Islamic-Christian Council demanded that all the international institutions… act to prevent the occupation authorities from carrying out their new crimes against Jerusalem and its religious and cultural identity. He said that the construction of these parks is a direct and overt forgery of the geographic identity of Jerusalem and of the history of the holy city, and a great and dangerous deception of the peoples and the modern human cultures.”