VZCZCXRO3932
RR RUEHROV
DE RUEHJM #2257/01 3451538
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 111538Z DEC 09
FM AMCONSUL JERUSALEM
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6965
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 JERUSALEM 002257 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
NEA FOR FRONT OFFICE AND IPA; NSC FOR SHAPIRO/KUMAR; JOINT 
STAFF FOR LTGEN SELVA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL KPAL KWBG IS
SUBJECT: MUNICIPAL PLANNING FAILURE ENDANGERS VILLAGE 
STRADDLING JERUSALEM-WEST BANK BOUNDARY 
 
REF: JERUSALEM 2063 
 
¶1.  (SBU)  Summary:  Residents of the village of al-Walaja, 
which straddles the line between the Municipality of 
Jerusalem and the West Bank, are in legal limbo.  This is a 
result of the Jerusalem District Planning Board's February 
2009 rejection of a town planning scheme for the village, the 
August 2009 expiration of a court order halting demolition 
orders against 45 homes, and the failure of villagers' 
efforts either to obtain Jerusalem residency permits or have 
the whole of the village declared part of the West Bank. 
Israeli lawyers and planners representing the villagers are 
calling for international attention to prevent the resumption 
of home demolitions and punitive detentions, which occurred 
in al-Walaja throughout the 1990s and earlier in the decade. 
End Summary. 
 
HISTORY:  AN OVERLOOKED ANNEXATION 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU)  The village of al-Walaja, which has some 2,000 
residents, was founded in 1948 by Arab refugees from the new 
State of Israel, who took up residence on agricultural lands 
they owned on the Jordanian-controlled side of the 1948 
armistice line.  (Ninety-seven percent of al-Walaja's current 
population has refugee status.)  From 1948 to 1967, al-Walaja 
was administered by Jordanian authorities.  Following 
Israel's military occupation of the West Bank in 1967, the 
village was administered and provided with services by the 
predecessor agency of what is now referred to as the Israeli 
Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories 
(COGAT), and villagers held Israeli-issued West Bank 
identification cards.  In the mid-1980s, Jerusalem 
municipality officials executed demolition orders against two 
homes in the northern half of the village.  They did so on 
the basis that this portion of al-Walaja, comprising 300-320 
homes, had, since 1967, been located inside the Jerusalem 
municipal borders (which were unilaterally expanded by the 
GOI in 1967). 
 
¶3.  (SBU)  Municipality officials have subsequently issued a 
total of 45 additional home demolition orders in this portion 
of al-Walaja, on the basis that these homes had been 
constructed after 1967, and without municipal permission. 
Throughout this period and until today, the residents of 
al-Walaja have paid no municipal taxes and received no 
municipal services, including health care and education, the 
side of the boundary on which they resided notwithstanding. 
Residents of that portion of al-Walaja defined by the GOI as 
located inside Jerusalem were never issued Jerusalem 
residency permits and, until the 1980s, were unaware that 
they lived inside the municipal borders.  They also became 
subject to periodic arrests by the Israeli Border Police, on 
the grounds that they were illegally present inside their 
homes. 
 
CURRENT STATUS:  AN UNRESOLVED QUANDARY 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  Since discovering in the mid-1980s that half of 
their village fell under Jerusalem municipal rather than 
COGAT administration, al-Walaja residents have tried through 
various means to regularize their personal and property 
status under Israeli law.  According to UNRWA, villagers 
unsuccessfully petitioned in 1989 and 2003 that the whole of 
the village be "returned" to the West Bank.  Residents of the 
portion of the village inside Jerusalem municipal borders 
have brought court cases requesting the issuance of Jerusalem 
residency permits.  These cases have stalemated, according to 
residents and NGO observers. 
 
¶5.  (SBU)  In 2006, with the assistance of Israeli lawyer 
Eitan Peleg and planner Claude Rosenkowitz, the residents of 
al-Walaja petitioned the courts to order a halt to 
demolitions on the grounds that the village was in the 
process of submitting a town plan to municipal and regional 
planning officials that would retroactively legalize those 
homes subject to demolition.  In what Peleg described as an 
"unprecedented, unique" move, municipal courts issued a 
three-year stop-work order on the 45 demolition orders.  That 
decision, combined with a 2004 court order barring the GOI 
from routing the separation barrier through the center of the 
village, seemed to presage a possible solution. 
 
¶6.  (SBU)  A setback ocurred in February 2009, when the 
Jerusalem District Planning Board rejected this planning 
 
JERUSALEM 00002257  002 OF 002 
 
 
scheme on the grounds that the new Jerusalem Master Plan 
proposed by Mayor Nir Barkat would, if approved, zone the 
al-Walaja area as future "green space," as well as on the 
grounds that the Board did not wish to retroactively legalize 
illegal construction.  In August 2009, the court order 
halting home demolitions in al-Walaja expired, having run its 
three-year course. 
 
UNCERTAIN FUTURE FOR VILLAGERS, HOMES 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶7.  (SBU)  Peleg and Rosenkowitz noted to Post that while the 
municipality has not yet moved to resume demolitions since 
the stop-order's August expiration, the 45 orders remain 
valid, and could be executed at any time.  In the absence of 
an approved town planning scheme, no new legal construction 
in al-Walaja is possible, nor is retroactive municipal 
approval of building completed after 1967.  Without forward 
progress on court cases brought by villagers seeking 
Jerusalem residency permits, large numbers of al-Walaja 
residents remain "illegally present" in their homes. 
 
¶8.  (SBU)  NGO contacts and villagers also expressed concern 
to ConGenOffs about the planned route of the separation 
barrier in the al-Walaja area.  In 2005, they successfully 
obtained a court order barring the GOI from routing the 
barrier through the center of the village, on humanitarian 
grounds.  However, the revised route of the barrier remains 
problematic, they said, as it will turn the village into a 
walled enclave connected with Bethlehem by a tunnel.  This 
would increase movement and access hurdles, and further 
impoverish the village, where unemployment stands at 70 
percent. 
 
¶9.  (SBU)  Residents also expressed concern about press 
reports indicating that private developers are seeking to 
construct a 45,000-resident settlement, called Givat Yael, in 
an arc to the village's north, west, and south -- and, 
according to some maps, on private property inside the 
village itself (Reftel).  Israeli daily Haaretz reported in 
late September that Givat Yael's planners had approached the 
residents of al-Walaja seeking an "accommodation" in which 
the planners would support the legalization of homes subject 
to demolition inside al-Walaja, in exchange for villagers' 
agreement not to oppose the construction of the Givat Yael 
settlement.  Villagers told ConGenOffs they refused the offer. 
 
VILLAGERS POINT FINGER AT GOI INTENTIONS 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶10.  (SBU)  On a December 4 visit to al-Walaja, villagers 
told Post that they distrusted GOI motives and the GOI's 
failure to regularize their status.  One said, "We've been 
asking for a master plan (to legalize construction) for five 
years -- but the problem is Givat Yael.  Givat Yael will 
start from (the nearby settlement of) Gilo, and come up to 
here.  We've been asking to have Jerusalem identification 
cards since 2004, but the Israelis refuse because they're 
planning for the future.  If we're here illegally, it's 
easier to get rid of us." 
 
 
ACTIVISTS REQUEST INTERNATIONAL ATTENTION 
----------------------------------------- 
 
¶11.  (SBU)  Israeli NGOs and activists working with the 
villagers argued that more than legal assistance, what was 
needed in al-Walaja was the sort of international attention 
given to home evictions in Sheikh Jarrah and planned 
demolitions in the al-Bustan area of Silwan.  "We need to 
serve notice," one argued, "that there are eyes other than 
ours on this case.  This is a special case.  You have 
refugees, you have the barrier, you have home demolitions, 
you have the problems we face with planning.  This is a 
humanitarian issue." 
 
RUBINSTEIN