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An Israeli plan to build a cable car system over Jerusalem leading to the Western Wall has sparked outrage among Palestinians who say it is erasing their heritage.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Israeli housing cabinet approved a controversial plan to install a cable car over the Old City last week. The cable car will be able to transport 3,000 people an hour in a four-minute ride from West Jerusalem to the Western Wall in occupied East Jerusalem. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Israeli government touted the roughly NIS 220 million ($63 million) plan as a way to reduce traffic congestion in the popular destination for tourists and worshippers. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n "This is a strategic project to promote tourism in the Old City. Step by step, we are transforming a vision into a new reality," Israel’s Jerusalem and Heritage Minister Zeev Elkin said. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n But Palestinians reject the plan, saying it will put a cable car above their homes in East Jerusalem and drive a wedge into the future of the city at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, but Israel annexed the area after the 1967 war and claims all of Jerusalem as its capital. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dr Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation Executive Committee, <\/span>denounced the proposed cable car on <\/span>Twitter<\/span><\/a>, calling it “an obscene violation of the cultural, historical, spiritual, geographic & demographic character of Jerusalem.”<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n “It is also an illegal assault on the occupied Palestinian city & its people who have been living there for centuries,” she added.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Palestinians in the Silwan neighbourhood of East Jerusalem believe the cable car project will erase their identity in the city. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n “[It] will give the impression that it is a Jewish city and remove the Palestinian heritage from it,” Silwan resident Khaled Al-Zeer told<\/span> Reuters<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Emek Shaveh, an Israeli non-governmental organisation working to defend cultural heritage rights, alleged the cable car route "<\/span>serves a highly political agenda<\/span><\/a>” and will damage the historical foundation of the city. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n It also argues a transitional government should not be permitted to approve projects “with such significant political implications for Jerusalem”, and claims it was “fast-tracked” through the traditional government channels. The NGO is planning to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n “The appeal to the High Court is intended to prevent the destructive impact that a cable car will have on the Old City landscape and on the fragile political situation in Jerusalem,” Emek Shaveh said in a <\/span>statement<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The cable car network is set to be ready by 2021, but it still needs to receive final government approval before construction can begin. <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An Israeli plan to build a cable car system over Jerusalem leading to the Western Wall has sparked outrage among Palestinians who say it is erasing their heritage. The Israeli… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/palestinemonitor.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/palestinemonitor.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/palestinemonitor.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palestinemonitor.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palestinemonitor.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/palestinemonitor.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/palestinemonitor.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palestinemonitor.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palestinemonitor.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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