On 15 May 2022 the Israeli High Court unanimously upheld a plan by the Israeli government and the Jerusalem Development Authority to construct a cable car that runs through occupied East Jerusalem, including Silwan and the Old City. The ruling, written by Justice Yosef Elron, dismissed all four petitions filed against the plan, including petitions by Silwan residents whose homes face demolition because of the cable car’s construction. The plan for the cable car construction was approved by the interim Israeli government in November 2019.
The Court completely adopted the Israeli government’s position regarding the objectives of the cable car’s construction, determining that it serves transportation needs, significantly easing the traffic jam in the area, and a touristic priority, facilitating arrival of tourists and residents to the so-called “Holy Basin.” According to the Court, the petitioners could not substantiate their claims regarding the environmental hazard of the cable car. It decided that any distortion that the cable car could cause to the unique skyline in the area is deemed proportionate in relation to the benefits of the project.
The court also dismissed, point-blank, the concerns of Silwan residents, stating that the public interest of constructing the cable car outweighs potential damage to private property. Most of the Court’s decision focused on whether the process of approving the plan met the standards of Israeli administrative law, concluding that all the concerned committees acted in accordance with the law.
The court did recognize that the Cable Car may lead to the destruction of the Karaite-Jewish Cemetery, inflicting a violation on the dignity of the dead, but concluded that this damage, too, was proportionate. The judge cited a previous ruling, concerned with the establishment of a so-called museum of tolerance on the ruins of an Islamic cemetery near Jaffa Gate, to illustrate that the right of the dignity of the dead was not absolute and violations could be justified in the guise of public needs and interest.
Since the plan for the construction of the cable car was first discussed before the planning committees, JLAC recognized that the chances for success of any legal challenge would be slim because the High Court does not tend to intervene in what it deems professional planning-related issues.
Yet, JLAC also maintains that the portrayal of the plan as merely one concerned with transportation and tourism is false and misleading. The role played by the settler organization El-Ad/Ir David in promoting the cable car, combined with Israeli occupation attempts to entrench control over the southern area of the Old City, indicate that the cable car is yet another instrument for colonial control over the Old City and Silwan.
While the channels for challenging the project before Israeli courts and the different planning committees had been all but exhausted, JLAC reminds that the Old City and its Walls have been inscribed on UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger. As such we call on UNESCO to put pressure on Israeli occupation authorities to Immediately halt this project. We also call on international corporations to abstain from any involvement in the construction or the maintenance of the cable car. International corporations that cooperate with such a project, constructed on an occupied territory and without the consultation, let alone the approval, of the protected population, will be complicit in violating international law.
The Cable Car is the latest example of how Israel seeks to control not just the land but also the Palestinian skyline. The Israeli High Court, as was the case with the approval of the Masafer Yatta mass expulsion, added its stamp of legitimacy.