Excerpts from a Knesset debate (June 28, 2006) on the Safdie Plan - a project to build 20,000 housing units to replace large areas of the Jerusalem Forest just outside western Jerusalem - whose future is being decided today:
MK Dov Hanin (Hadash) on the Harm to City's Social Fabric:
Some 16,000 objections have been submitted to this plan - an unprecedented number, and the truth is that the plan itself is unprecedented... There are many reasons for the objections, such as environmental reasons - the plan destroys wonderful open areas, including a national park.
But I would like to concentrate specifically on the social reasons. The plan will greatly harm the Jerusalem city fabric. It will lead to the departure of the strong population and the collapse of the inner city. It will harm the ability to thicken the built-up areas and to build new neighborhoods within the city limits, to develop employment areas there...
According to Sustainable Jerusalem, a coalition of environmental and social organizations in Jerusalem, there is plenty of room to build within the city. Thus, all the justifications for the Safdie Plan collapse...
Expanding Jerusalem westward and eastward will turn Jerusalem into a city from sea to sea, from the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean, but it won't be a real city; it won't be a city that it will be possible or pleasant to live in... I can more than assume that behind this plan are also foreign powerful real estate interests, people who will make a lot of money from this plan - while the People of Israel and of Jerusalem will lose...
MK Michael Melchior (Labor) on Outdated Urban Planning Conceptions
...Environmentally, the open areas in the Judean Mountains are the most important great green open space that truly remains in central Israel. In the original zoning plan, it is supposed to remain a preserve of natural and national legacy, a place for vacationing... but the Safdie Plan will put an end to all that.
But I think that no less important is something very fundamental that people don't really understand. The conception 30-40 years ago in the world was to build suburbs around large cities. But slowly, this began to change, and today, there is no such urban plan in the world like that. It is understood that this destroys the city, because if the city center turns into slums or people leave it and there is no dynamic life and culture and studies and everything else - this destroys the city. All over the world this is understood, except in Jerusalem...
Another claim is that there are no places to build within Jerusalem. This is simply incorrect. There are so many places to build, and I will name just a few: The Shneller Compound [near Geulah], the former Foreign Ministry area [near Binyanei HaUmah], the entrance to the city, Omariya [in the German Colony], Mekor Chaim, Givat HaMatos [near Gilo], Har Haom, and N'vei Yaakov....
MK Ruby Rivlin (Likud) on the Political Considerations:
...It is true that there is a strong need to find areas in which to building Jerusalem, but I don't know what this has to do with destroying the mountains of Jerusalem...
Construction in western Jerusalem will be a death decree for the last corners of pleasantness in the Jerusalem expanse - Ein Karem, Har Heret, Mitzpheh Naftoah will turn into urban hilltops and roads... The goal of increasing the city's population to 900,000 can be reached without the Safdie Plan... I have the feeling that behind these considerations are real estate sharks, with the city of Jerusalem having to pay the price...
I cannot escape the impression that the Safdie Plan has a particular political/diplomatic orientation. De-facto, the plan wishes to divide Jerusalem. A westward-facing Jerusalem means the abandonment of the east, which means the division of Jerusalem. The plan paves the way for a diplomatic agreement regarding the city, giving us a stronger hold on the west and a weaker one in the east...
MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) on the Consensus:
There are few Knesset debates in which there is such a wide consensus - right and left, all the parties --
MK Ran Cohen (Meretz):
-- religious and secular, new immigrants and veteran Israelis --
Gafni:
-- everyone, and the reason is simple. To go and destroy Jerusalem, the holy city, a beautiful city, to which the eyes of the world are raised - and when people from all over the world arrive here and see the mountains of Jerusalem as they approach the city and see these beautiful areas - to go and destroy them so illogically, so unjustly, so incorrectly, this is very grave from every possible standpoint...
MK Dov Hanin (Hadash) on the Harm to City's Social Fabric:
Some 16,000 objections have been submitted to this plan - an unprecedented number, and the truth is that the plan itself is unprecedented... There are many reasons for the objections, such as environmental reasons - the plan destroys wonderful open areas, including a national park.
But I would like to concentrate specifically on the social reasons. The plan will greatly harm the Jerusalem city fabric. It will lead to the departure of the strong population and the collapse of the inner city. It will harm the ability to thicken the built-up areas and to build new neighborhoods within the city limits, to develop employment areas there...
According to Sustainable Jerusalem, a coalition of environmental and social organizations in Jerusalem, there is plenty of room to build within the city. Thus, all the justifications for the Safdie Plan collapse...
Expanding Jerusalem westward and eastward will turn Jerusalem into a city from sea to sea, from the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean, but it won't be a real city; it won't be a city that it will be possible or pleasant to live in... I can more than assume that behind this plan are also foreign powerful real estate interests, people who will make a lot of money from this plan - while the People of Israel and of Jerusalem will lose...
MK Michael Melchior (Labor) on Outdated Urban Planning Conceptions
...Environmentally, the open areas in the Judean Mountains are the most important great green open space that truly remains in central Israel. In the original zoning plan, it is supposed to remain a preserve of natural and national legacy, a place for vacationing... but the Safdie Plan will put an end to all that.
But I think that no less important is something very fundamental that people don't really understand. The conception 30-40 years ago in the world was to build suburbs around large cities. But slowly, this began to change, and today, there is no such urban plan in the world like that. It is understood that this destroys the city, because if the city center turns into slums or people leave it and there is no dynamic life and culture and studies and everything else - this destroys the city. All over the world this is understood, except in Jerusalem...
Another claim is that there are no places to build within Jerusalem. This is simply incorrect. There are so many places to build, and I will name just a few: The Shneller Compound [near Geulah], the former Foreign Ministry area [near Binyanei HaUmah], the entrance to the city, Omariya [in the German Colony], Mekor Chaim, Givat HaMatos [near Gilo], Har Haom, and N'vei Yaakov....
MK Ruby Rivlin (Likud) on the Political Considerations:
...It is true that there is a strong need to find areas in which to building Jerusalem, but I don't know what this has to do with destroying the mountains of Jerusalem...
Construction in western Jerusalem will be a death decree for the last corners of pleasantness in the Jerusalem expanse - Ein Karem, Har Heret, Mitzpheh Naftoah will turn into urban hilltops and roads... The goal of increasing the city's population to 900,000 can be reached without the Safdie Plan... I have the feeling that behind these considerations are real estate sharks, with the city of Jerusalem having to pay the price...
I cannot escape the impression that the Safdie Plan has a particular political/diplomatic orientation. De-facto, the plan wishes to divide Jerusalem. A westward-facing Jerusalem means the abandonment of the east, which means the division of Jerusalem. The plan paves the way for a diplomatic agreement regarding the city, giving us a stronger hold on the west and a weaker one in the east...
MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) on the Consensus:
There are few Knesset debates in which there is such a wide consensus - right and left, all the parties --
MK Ran Cohen (Meretz):
-- religious and secular, new immigrants and veteran Israelis --
Gafni:
-- everyone, and the reason is simple. To go and destroy Jerusalem, the holy city, a beautiful city, to which the eyes of the world are raised - and when people from all over the world arrive here and see the mountains of Jerusalem as they approach the city and see these beautiful areas - to go and destroy them so illogically, so unjustly, so incorrectly, this is very grave from every possible standpoint...