Israel’s Disneyfication of Jerusalem Seeks to Erase Palestinians’ Historic Presence

Israel completed the first part of a suspension bridge over Wadi Rababa (or Hinnom Valley) in the Palestinian district of Silwan in East Jerusalem.1 With this and other tourist projects in motion, Israel is erasing Jerusalem’s history as a multicultural city and transforming the ring around Jerusalem’s Old City into a Jewish theme park serving a unilateral political agenda.

The bridge is more than 100 feet tall and nearly 660 feet in length2—making it the longest pedestrian bridge in the country3—and connects Mount Zion to Bayit Ba’Gai (A House in the Valley) a “café” belonging to the Elad settler association4 on the outskirts of the Palestinian neighborhood of Abu Tur. The café itself is on three dunums of land that was confiscated from its Palestinian owners through an illegal swindle scheme. Legal proceedings in this case dragged on for years.5

Pitched as an “extreme sport project” and costing 20 million shekels (over $5.6 million),6 the bridge is part of a series of construction efforts jointly undertaken by the Israeli government and Elad with the goal of cementing Israeli control over the Old City and its environs, specifically the Holy Basin.

“We are working to turn the Hinnom Valley into a developed tourism zone and in so doing achieve two additional goals: one is to strengthen the sense of security and sovereignty in the area, the other is to ease access to the Old City,” Minister of Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Ze’ev Elkin said in October 2022 when construction began.7 Between the lines, this is code for providing routes to the Old City (inconveniently closely surrounded by areas densely populated with Palestinians) without needing to go through those areas, and then working to Judaize those areas and ensure they remain under Israeli sovereignty in perpetuity and can never be returned to any future Palestinian entity.

Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion stated that the bridge allows “free and safe movement,”8 implying that the footbridge also serves to connect West and East Jerusalem in a way that enables settlers to avoid coming into contact with Palestinians.

Beyond the bridge, other touristic projects include a cable car and zipline designed to turn the historically sacred area, known as the Old City Basin, into a desecrated Disney-esque experience.

Emek Shaveh, an archaeology-focused NGO, described the construction works as having a more sinister aim than merely catering to tourists, however.

“All of these are part of the larger strategy to establish a continuum of biblically themed tourism ventures and Jewish residential settlements in the Silwan-Hinnom Valley area using a variety of legal and administrative mechanisms to displace Palestinians from their homes, shrink their public spaces and downplay their heritage,” the nonprofit organization said in a press release from last year.9

Not only does a zipline, cable car, and bridge hanging over Palestinian homes in Silwan turn Jerusalem’s iconic skyline into a trapezist’s dream, they also allow tourists to bypass Palestinian neighborhoods and give the impression of a Jewish-only city.

Included in the settler-sponsored tourist attractions is Israel’s longest zipline, stretching nearly a half-mile from Elad’s Beit Schatz visitors center to the settlers’ campgrounds in the so-called Peace Forest,10 a woody pasture created by the Jewish National Fund at the end of the 1967 War.11 According to signs posted at Beit Schatz, the 10-million-shekel ($2.7 million) zipline is set to open soon.

The project, predicted to bring in mass revenue for Elad, will have thrill-seekers soar over Silwan from the Sherover promenade near the Palestinian neighborhood of Jabal Mukabbir to south of Abu Tur.12

“Both are highly damaging to Jerusalem’s historic skyline and cultural and demographic character,” Emek Shaveh said of the suspension bridge and zipline.

Last year, Israel’s Supreme Court dismissed petitions against an even more controversial construction project: a cable car over the Old City. The cable car project was widely opposed when it was proposed in 2019, with some 30 international architects urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel the plan over the project’s political agenda.13 The nonprofit organization Ir Amim notes that approval for the project was pushed through during an interim government, a clear indication of a commitment to specific political goals advanced by the project.14 The letter followed a statement from 70 Israeli archaeologists, architects, and public figures denouncing the cable car project, writing “Jerusalem is not Disneyland, and its landscape and heritage are not for sale.”

Labeled by Emek Shaveh as “potentially the most destructive of the projects currently under development in the historic basin,”15 the transit line is expected to link the First Station complex in West Jerusalem to the Kedem Compound, Elad’s planned tourist center in Silwan.16 Again, the project is billed as another seamless settler passageway connecting West to East and absent of Arabs.

The cable car’s 73 cabins will ferry 3,000 passengers hourly on a near mile-long route.17 Among the Palestinian homes in the path of the zipline is the Karameh home. Cable cars will pass a few yards over the rooftops on which they hang their laundry; a supporting column for the cables might be placed in the family garden. The combined effect of this tourist project will be to obliterate residents’ sense of safety and privacy in their homes.18 The cable car will also run through a cemetery belonging to the Karaite Jewish community, and members of that community object to the plan on the grounds that it desecrates an ancient graveyard where the community has buried their leaders for hundreds of years.19

Ending at Kedem Compound, tourists will then be guided by Elad to ancient sewage tunnels under Silwan, where they can shop for souvenirs, thereby circumventing Palestinian shops in the Old City market long dependent on tourism. Cable car stops will be provided only at Jewish biblical sites like the Pool of Siloam and the Jewish Cemetery on the Mount of Olives. Thus, tourists will be challenged to see Jerusalem for what it is: a multifaith city.

Former Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat acknowledged as much in comments to the New York Times in 2019:

While the High Court green-lighted the cable car’s construction, a building tender has yet to be issued. However, according to Emek Shaveh, the tenders committee has approved several contracts preceding construction, suggesting a tender may soon be promoted for the cable car.

In mid-March, the city added four double-decker “Hop On Hop Off” red busses, similar to those found in large cities around the world and shamelessly promoting a tourist ethos in a city that has been proposed as a world heritage site. 

The City of David has wasted no time integrating this red bus into its “Hallelujah Night Show” this summer, which is touted on its website as “A unique and moving show, telling the epic story of the return to Zion . . .”20 Promotional photos on the City of David website offer a preview of this garish and kitschy spectacle.

In May 2023, the Israeli government gifted Elad additional funding for its Old City Basin projects on this year’s Jerusalem Day, an Israeli holiday marking its annexation of East Jerusalem following the 1967 War. Now with a total budget of NIS 104 million (over $28 million), the settler group can push forward with excavations and touristic ventures in the area surrounding the Old City unencumbered. The budget increase does not include money for the suspension bridge and cable car.21

With an already-established biblical-style farm in Wadi Rababa on land belonging to Palestinian families in Silwan and a planned promenade along the slope of the Mount of Olives,22 settler-state joint building is erasing the area’s historic Palestinian presence. As Emek Shaveh noted in its latest press release, “These developments are transforming the landscape of Jerusalem and reshaping the historic narrative marketed to the public.”23 In so doing, tourism is becoming a powerful vehicle in Judaizing Jerusalem by erasing the Palestinian presence.