Israeli Court Halts Government Funding for Settlement Visitor Center in Silwan

An Israeli court has canceled government funding for a controversial Jewish settlement visitor center planned for the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem. The Central District Court in Jerusalem accepted a lawsuit filed by the Ir Amim organization and residents of the Batn al-Hawa neighborhood against the funding. The court ruled that an agreement between the Benvenisti Trust and the "Kedmot Yerushalayim" association, controlled by the Ateret Cohanim settlement group, could not proceed due to a conflict of interest among the trust's trustees and the settlement association.

Ir Amim stated that the Israeli Ministry of Heritage had allocated up to three million shekels for the project, intended for a building from which five Palestinian families were previously evicted. The building is located in Batn al-Hawa, where trustees linked to Ateret Cohanim are pursuing legal actions to evict approximately 100 Palestinian families from their homes as part of efforts to expand the settlement presence in the area.

The ruling follows years of legal efforts by Ir Amim and Batn al-Hawa residents. In 2020, legal actions initiated by Ir Amim led to a freeze on the project after the Israeli Registrar of Endowments deemed it contrary to the trust's objectives. However, the project was revived in 2022 due to political intervention by Israeli Ministers Gideon Sa'ar and Ze'ev Elkin, prompting Ir Amim and the residents to return to court.

Judge David Zeller affirmed that Ateret Cohanim's influence on the trust's decisions was not merely a theoretical concern, suggesting that the trustees' relationships with the settlement association might have dictated the property's use rather than the trust's original goals. The current ruling prohibits the agreement's implementation in its present form, requiring any future attempts to proceed with the project to be free of conflicts of interest. Another lawsuit filed by Ir Amim and Batn al-Hawa residents against the trust's trustees and Ateret Cohanim's control over it remains pending.

Ir Amim described the ruling as a significant achievement against the exploitation of the Benvenisti Trust to promote settlement and displace Palestinian families from Batn al-Hawa. The organization noted that Ateret Cohanim has been using the trust for years to evict residents and aimed to convert the property, from which five Palestinian families were removed, into a tourist center serving its settlement agenda. The court's decision halts this plan in its current form and represents a crucial step in opposing the displacement of the neighborhood's residents and consolidating the settlement there.