Visitors’ Center Mt. of Olives

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Visitors’ Center Mt. of Olives

Publishing date: 20/11/2023

* The project is located on figure #15.

Location
Southern end of Mount of Olives; near Ras Al-‘Amud Mosque.

Initiator
Jerusalem Development Authority.

Implementer
Jerusalem Development Authority.

Budget
NIS 150 million + $10 Million

Project Description
This plan, initiated by the Jerusalem Development Authority, was submitted in April 2017. The plan was filed in an unusual manner (as a plan for confiscation), in order to bypass the lengthy and complicated normal process for issuing a permit.
The plan aims to expropriate an area of approximately 1,300 m2 within the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, adjacent to the Ras Al-’Amud Mosque (Master Plan No. 470484). It also intends to allocate the expropriated area for public purposes, with the goal of building a center for visitors to the adjacent cemetery. The planned center will include a Synagogue, training center, libraries, souvenir shops, exhibition hall, auditorium, research institute for mapping and cemetery research, and an observation post.
This is a particularly sensitive area, in the historic basin of occupied East Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives, opposite the Old City and the Haram Al-Sharif, and adjacent to an active mosque.

Status
A detailed city building plan was approved in August 2019 and received a permit. In March 2022, an agreement for establishing the Center was signed between the “International Committee for the Protection of the Mount of Olives”, the Jerusalem Municipality, The Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs, the Jerusalem Development Authority, and the Jerusalem Fund.
Even before the approval of the plan, works were done in the area, though the Jerusalem municipality claimed that they were works by the Antiquities Authority and “not related to the construction plan” of the Center. The center itself has not yet been built.

Approving Entity
District Planning Committee.

Objections
Emek Shaveh, Peace Now.