NOW: Historic Acre for Sale (1.4.2012)

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The Society for the Development of Old Acre now offers for sale everything (all quotations are taken from the Society’s description). The sites are divided between "Projects for immediate marketing" and "Projects to be marketed during the second stage".

Whoever is interested in the past and future of Acre as a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural city of different religions and cultures, whoever seeks to defend it not as a dead monument but as a living city, where Israelis and Palestinians can live in equality, whoever realizes that these monuments are part of humanity’s cultural patrimony and the history of Acre’s inhabitants, should read the following list, available on the Society’s website:


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For sale: Khan al-Sawarda


  • The Khan al-Shuna ("contains authentic parts from the Crusader Period")
  • Khan al-Shawarda (to become "a commercial complex" with "a small, 60 room hotel")
  • The Inn on the Wall
  • The White Market (al-Suq al-Abyad)
  • The Small Hamam
  • The Rotary Halls ("A Crusader building with impressive domes, in a central location opposite the Pisan Port and south of Khan-el-Umdan")
  • The Southern Anchor
  • The city’s Fortification Complex (Burj al-Kommandar)
  • Burj Kurieim (aka the English Tower) ("the site is to be used for tourism purposes, such as a restaurant, a conference center and so forth")
  • Ptolemais
  • "Site 54" ("A vaulted Crusader building south of the covered bazaar… Thanks to the impressive open spaces and the accessibility, the building may be earmarked for commercial and tourism purposes.")
  • The Oil Press (the former oil and soap factory)
  • Residential complex ("A residential complex with an area of some 1,000 square meters north of the Sinan Pasha Mosque, cccupied by factories and ships on the ground floor, and residential apartments on the upper floor")

Background


For the past few years, Palestinian property is being offered for sale by the Israeli Development Authority everywhere : In Acre, Haifa, Nazareth, Lydda. Read Adalah’s report:


A New Jews-Only Neighborhood in Acre?

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The Ometz nationlist-religious settlers’ group in Acre announced in February 2012 that through a non-profit organization that it has et up, it would offer 153 villas in Northern Acre for Orthodox Jews only, in a new neighborhood called "The Fist of the North".

Ometz has won an Israel Lands Administration tender for a housing development in Acre. Another orthodox non-profit organization announced it would offer anther 43 housing units on the very same basis – for orthodox Jews only. The "Association for Construction of a Religious Neighborhood" works in partnership with a real estate company, "Be’Emuna – Housing for the Religious Public", also involved in a similar project for creating a Jews-only neighborhood in Jaffa.

The two nationalist organizations have won a tender for 196 housing units advertised by the Galilee Development Authority – the state agency promoting the cause of judaizing the Galilee. On 14.3.2012 The Association for Civil Rights (ACRI) in Israel together with the Acre-based Al-Yater Association, filed a petition with the Haifa District Court to annul the Israel Land Authority's (ILA) granting of building rights to the two organizations. Attorney Gan-Mor said:

“Selling apartments to nationalist-religious Jews only is meant to create a gated community and to exclude Arabs as well as Secular and Ultra-Orthodox Jews. This is no different from a neighborhood where in which one refuses to sell apartments to Jews of Ethiopian origin or from communities seeking to exclude ‘unwanted candidates’ through special selection committees.”

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