More than three decades after its establishment, the Elad settlement association has become a nightmare for Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem, as it is the occupation’s advanced tool for Judaization and consecration of settlement.

Based on biblical texts, the name “El-Ad” is an abbreviation of the Hebrew phrase “El Ir David,” which means “towards the City of David” in Arabic, in an attempt to impose claims that the occupied city of Jerusalem has been “the religious and spiritual capital of the Jewish people” for 3,000 years, according to what the association stated on its website.


Founder and founder

The Elad settlement association was founded in September 1986 by settler David Be’eri, who was born in 1953 to a Jewish family of Polish origin. He became “famous” in the media in 2010 when cameras documented him running over a Palestinian child with a Subaru during clashes in the town of Silwan in Jerusalem.

During his first military service in the occupation army between 1973-1979, Barry joined the Sayeret Matkal unit, which is responsible for carrying out special operations and operates under the command and leadership of the army’s intelligence division.

In 1988, Barry returned to reserve service in the occupation army, after the then-commander of the Central Command, Ehud Barak, asked him to assume responsibility as deputy commander of the “Duvdevan” unit, another elite unit in the occupation army, which specializes in gathering intelligence and carrying out complex arrest and assassination operations.

Israeli affairs expert Imad Abu Awad said in a press interview: “After Barry completed the first period of his military service in the occupation army, he went to study in extremist religious settlement associations such as Bnei Akiva and Ateret Cohanim, whose work focused on encouraging immigration to Jerusalem and connecting Jews to Jerusalem.”

He added: After that, Barry devoted himself to establishing his “Elad Association” in order to accelerate the settlement process in Silwan in particular. The main work that Elad supervised at that time was the management of the archaeological site north of Silwan called “City of David.”

Judaization is at the top of the list of goals

Elad defines its goals as follows: “Strengthening the Jewish connection to Jerusalem across generations, through tours, guidance, housing, and the production of promotional materials.”

Awad says about this: “Elad aims to Judaize the city of Jerusalem, make it the spiritual center for all Jews, and connect them to the holy city through several directions: a religious direction, a tourist direction, and a housing direction that targets religious Jews. We notice that most of the residents of Jerusalem are religious Jews, and most of the tourists are non-religious Jews.”

He added: “Elaad is working to erase the Arab and Islamic identity of Jerusalem, and to show only Jewish landmarks, whether touristic or non-tourist, and to attract Jews from all over the world to the city of Jerusalem.”

He stressed that “Elad” is working on many Judaization projects in the city of Jerusalem with the aim of attracting Jewish visitors who rely on religious ideology, and with their conviction that religious ideology does not attract all Jews, and with their keenness to bring all Jews on an ethnic basis, which requires taking into account that the majority of Jews are basically non-religious, the association established tourism projects.”

Its activities

Elad finances the occupation’s excavations in a number of areas, and controls Palestinian lands and homes either with money or through legal fraud.

Elad oversees dozens of settlement outposts in Silwan (there were 70 outposts until 2017), the closest area to Al-Aqsa, and is using huge legal and financial tricks to increase these settlement outposts.

Elad controls the management of at least three archaeological areas, or what the occupation calls “national parks,” namely the archaeological area in what is called the “City of David,” or in Hebrew “Ir David,” the Umayyad palaces area, and the “Givati Parking Lot” area, all of which are located a few meters south of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Regarding Elad’s current attacks, Awad said: “One of its most prominent attacks currently is the excavations on the western side of Al-Aqsa Mosque, claiming that through them they have begun to discover the Old City of Jerusalem.”

“It is working to Judaize the Holy City, through various means and methods, including: displacing Arabs through the harassment it carries out, and buying a lot of land. It is also implementing many projects through which it aims to give the city of Jerusalem a Jewish hue, through tourism projects or excavations or through tourist trips and their large intensification towards Jerusalem, and encouraging trade and commercial centers in the city of Jerusalem, and pressuring the occupation government and the Israeli right to impose full Jewish sovereignty over the Holy City.”

Financing

According to a Haaretz report in March 2016, the association received approximately 450 million shekels (about $125 million) between 2006 and 2013.

The same report indicates that the Israeli tax authorities turn a blind eye to Elad’s budgets and funding sources, and that the latter submits financial reports containing anonymous sources, contrary to what is required by law.

In a report last month, Haaretz revealed that the association received 28 million shekels from the Israeli occupation government to support its settlement and Judaization projects in the Wadi al-Rababa neighborhood in the town of Silwan, south of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, with the aim of changing the character of the land and seizing it, under the pretext of “gardening.”

According to the Hebrew newspaper Haaretz, the settlement association received public funds from three different Israeli entities: “the Ministry of Jerusalem Development and Heritage, the Jerusalem Municipality, and the Jerusalem Development Authority.”

She added that “the settlement association received an additional four million shekels from the Jerusalem Development Authority for the project to preserve the burial caves. In addition, the municipality transferred about two million shekels to it in order to develop the area, and another two million shekels for a similar reason.”

Regarding funding sources, Awad indicated: “Elad receives between 70 and 80 million shekels annually, 70% of which comes from donations, and 30% from the government budget.”

Government cooperation with Elad

Cooperation between Elad and Israeli official bodies takes various forms, ranging from receiving funding from official bodies, overlooking their legal violations, or coordinating tours for school students and occupation soldiers under their supervision to spread their settlement narrative, all the way to full cooperation and entrusting them with managing archaeological sites without supervision or accountability.

Within this framework of cooperation, the relations that link Elad to the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Israel Parks and Nature Authority, and the Jewish Quarter Development Company stand out, which are particularly evident in the management of the archaeological sites south of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, including the Umayyad palaces, the antiquities located north of Silwan (Givati Parking Lot, Ir David), and the tunnels dug under Silwan leading to the Old City.

The Israeli Antiquities Authority also allowed Elad to conduct archaeological excavations in various areas of Jerusalem, without its direct supervision, without publishing clear agreements or tenders in this regard, and with very large funding coming from various Israeli ministries, in clear violation of Israeli laws.