Israel Matzav

I'm sure we'll hear how this is 'destroying peace'

With some modifications, Israel's Supreme Court on Sunday approved the extension of the Begin Highway in Jerusalem to hook up with the Gush Etzion tunnel road at the southern end of the city. The extension was being held up by objections from residents of Beit Tzefafa, a 'Palestinian' neighborhood on the city's southern edge which claimed that the new highway would cut their neighborhood into pieces.

Despite the overall ruling, the court did make some modifications based on the Beit Safafa residents' wishes, cancelling certain road-networks around the main road and demanding that the state produce a new master-plan before it could move ahead with those issues.  

The battle over the 1.8 km highway has gone on for years, with the state periodically making partial compromises toward the wishes of the residents, but never enough to gain the residents' acquiescence.

Residents of Beit Safafa, located in southeast Jerusalem near Gilo, opposed the extension of the Begin Highway towards the Tunnel Road that leads to Gush Etzion because the highway cuts through the middle of their neighborhood and slices it into multiple sections.

The state wanted the highway extension to improve overall travel within the city, which it said will also pay large economic dividends.

The state had had the upper hand, having won approval from the Jerusalem District Court in February 2013 to continue building the road which is already under way.

At a mid-October 2013 hearing, Supreme Court President Asher D. Grunis seemed to press the residents for compromises, as he demanded they narrow their objections to a few specific items which the state might be able to address.

The residents hammered away at two main points. The first was that there needed to be much more extensive overpasses to enable them to travel easily within the neighborhood without getting blocked by the new highway extension.

The second was that there needed to be much more extensive walls separating the highway from the areas it crossed through, since in some areas it is set to run within three meters or less of residents' houses.

The state said that it had already agreed to 180 meters of walls plus some overpasses to answer the residents' objections.

It had added that the residents' requests for additional walling and overpasses was simply not physically manageable given the layout of the neighborhood and the road and that the residents' maximum requests would costs over an additional NIS 100 million.

 Waiting for the EU and US to protest in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1....

Labels: East Jerusalem, Jerusalem construction

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:19 PM