Word: elad
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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With official Israeli backing, Elad has ambitions beyond Silwan. Lawyer Seidemann claims that since mid-2008, the Israeli government has accelerated a policy of "aggressively and covertly expanding and consolidating control over Silwan and the historic basin surrounding the Old City." The plan, he says, involves "the take-over of the public domain and Palestinian private property ... accelerated planning and approval of projects, and the establishment of a network of a series of parks and sites steeped in and serving up exclusionary, fundamentalist settler ideology." In its essence, the plan places a large area of Arab Jerusalem under Jewish control...
Welcome to Bible Land For now, Elad's centerpiece is the City of David, a cross between an archaeological site and a Jewish theme park that draws more than 400,000 tourists a year. Visitors are led through a honeycomb of caverns and excavations propped up by scaffolding. Then they wade through an underground canal that emerges into sunlight at the Siloam pool, where Christ is said to have cured the blind. Nearly half the visitors are Israeli army conscripts and schoolkids who hear lyrical description from Elad's guides about how the site is the very foundation of Jewish...
...many experts find Elad's archaeological claims dubious. Israel Finklestein, an archaeologist from Tel Aviv University says that while there may be ruins on the Elad site dating back to the 9th century B.C., "there's not a single piece of evidence about David's palace. These people are mixing faith with science." Yoni Mizrahi, an independent archaeologist formerly with the IAA, concurs: "You'd think from Elad's guides that they'd excavated a sign saying WELCOME TO DAVID'S PALACE. Their attitude seems to be that if you believe in the Bible, you don't need proof." Raphael...
...Elad's chief archaeologist, Eilat Mazar, says that "our working theory is that David's palace is down there." Mazar claims that workers have uncovered pottery shards from the 11th century B.C. and Phoenician motifs. "We know the Phoenicians built a palace for David," she says. (See pictures of a divided Jerusalem...
...excavations in Jerusalem are overseen by the IAA, and its director, ex-General Shuka Dorfman explained to TIME that while Elad manages and funds more than a dozen digs around Jerusalem, an IAA archaeologist is always on-site to analyze findings. Dorfman concedes that the settler organization's interpretation of its findings in Silwan "is different from ours." He adds: "They emphasize only the Jewish heritage." Sometimes, according to archaeologist Mizrahi, the Elad-sponsored digs ignore other strata of Jerusalem's multi-cultural history. "They're only focusing on one tradition - the Jewish one," he says...