The Jerusalem Educational Trust
The Jerusalem Educational Trust, finances Ateret Yerushalayim, also known as Ateret Cohanim, an organisation that seeks to establish a Jewish majority in occupied east Jerusalem (a project known more generally as ‘Judaisation’) by placing Jewish settlers in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem's Old City and the Palestinian villages of Silwan and Abu Dis, both through purchasing property and by violent force.[1]
According to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem, Ateret Cohanim is now in possession of six buildings, containing 27 housing units, in the area known as Batan al-Hawa, located in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Silwan, most of which had previously been home to Palestinian families who had already been dispossessed. The organisation continues to play an active role in that dispossession, recently attempting to evict 72 Palestinian families from across Silwan. Ateret Cohanim made headlines back in October 2014 for moving settlers into that neighbourhood in the middle of the night under armed guard.
One of its UK funders is the Loftus Charitable Trust (No 297664), which gave £2,800 in 2011.
Notes
- ↑ Amanda Klonsky, ‘Israeli police working with settlers to occupy Palestinian home in the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City’, Mondoweiss, 29 July 2010. http://mondoweiss.net/2010/07/israeli-police-working-with-settlers-to-occupy-palestinian-home-in-the-heart-of-jerusalems-old-city.
