Unfit for a king?

Construction has been halted at the old Jordanian royal summer villa.

By MELANIE LIDMAN
Jordanian villa Jerusalem_581 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Jordanian villa Jerusalem_581
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
In the early 1960s, when Jordan controlled all the West Bank and parts of Jerusalem, King Hussein decided on a location for his summer villa, nestled in the hills north of Jerusalem. The two-story villa, with wrap-around balconies, would provide a stunning panorama of the rolling hills of Jerusalem, as well as capture the cool mountain breezes wafting through the region.
King Hussein was not the first monarch to build a royal residence on that hilltop. Thousands of years earlier, King Saul had chosen the same spot for his palace, tradition holds.
Archeological discoveries in the area, called Tel Ful, point to the area’s significance as the capital of the tribe of Benjamin.
Construction started on Hussein’s summer retreat in the mid- 1960s. Workers had only finished the cement shell of the building when the Six Day War broke out, transferring the ownership of the land to Israel and cutting off the Jordanian royal family from their planned vacation villa. Since 1967, the building has been left untouched.
As with the Seven Arches Hotel on the Mount of Olives, which also has extensive ties to the Jordanian royal family, Israel has preferred not to touch the buildings at the risk of raising the ire of Jordan, leaving the delicate status quo in place.
The summer palace was abandoned. Over the decades, the area has been used by prostitutes and drug dealers. The building is overrun with large weeds, and the staircase is crumbling. That changed last week when Chaim Silberstein, the CEO and founder of Keep Jerusalem, who brings tour groups to the site frequently for the unparalleled views of Jerusalem, noticed tractors and workers pouring cement in the area to construct a large fence around the building.
“I went up to the manager and asked him what they were doing, and he said, ‘I work for the Wakf. This is our property. It’s too dangerous, and we’re fencing it in,’” Silberstein told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

The Muslim Wakf, which is overseen and financed by the Jordanian government, has retained control over some Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, such as the Al-Aksa Mosque plaza.
Any renovation work on the building would require a permit from the municipality. The municipality told the media they had not issued any permits for the building.
“This is the site of the ancient Givat Shaul. It’s the second-most important archeological site in Jerusalem after the City of David [near the Old City],” says Silberstein. “They are trying to remove Jewish connections and exert Palestinian sovereignty in east Jerusalem, and that’s not something we want,” he says.
Repeated attempts to contact the Wakf have been unsuccessful.
According to Silberstein, who notified a bevy of right-wing activists and Knesset members of the illegal renovations, the renovation work was halted at the end of last week. Silberstein says that in the future, he wants to see the area renovated for tourists and archeologists.