Credit
Uriel Sinai for The New York Times
NEAR
EL AROUB REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank — The old stone compound set amid
Palestinian farmland between the cities of Bethlehem and Hebron has a
relatively new fence.
The
compound, with eight buildings spread over 9.5 acres and a sign that
calls it “House of Blessing,†was a church-run hospital in the 1950s
and later became a hostel. It had sat dormant since around 2000, until
the conservative Jewish-American philanthropist Irving I. Moskowitz
began a major renovation project there a few months ago.
Mr.
Moskowitz’s son-in-law, Oren Ben Ezra, the director of the foundation
that now owns the site, said the plan is to use it for “educational
purposes.†But leftist Israeli politicians and advocacy groups have
reacted with alarm, suspecting a secret initiative to establish a new
settlement in the occupied West Bank that would further complicate the
peace process.
Either
way, the property, where renovations were halted after the left-leaning
Israeli daily Haaretz wrote about them last month, may be the next test
for the new governing coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Davidi
Perl, leader of a string of nearby settlements known as Gush Etzion,
said he had applied to Israel’s Ministry of Defense to incorporate the
compound into his jurisdiction, a move that is sure to draw
international condemnation. Gush Etzion is one of the so-called
settlement blocs whose boundaries Mr. Netanyahu would like to define in
negotiations with the Palestinians, according to comments he made
recently to Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s foreign affairs
chief.
Yet
this compound is outside the Gush Etzion boundaries outlined in various
international proposals imagining a Palestinian state alongside Israel,
and it is adjacent to two particularly volatile Palestinian
communities.
“Any
unauthorized move like that is meant to make us problems,†said Omer
Bar-Lev, one of several opposition members of Parliament who visited the
site last week. “It’s not legitimate.â€
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Though
the land is privately owned, Yariv Oppenheimer, director of the
anti-settlement group Peace Now, said he believes only the Israeli
government should decide its fate.
“It’s
not a private matter on property issues,†he argued. “It has to do
with security, it has to do with human rights.â€
Mr.
Moskowitz is among the most prominent of a group of wealthy, ardently
pro-Israel Americans — including Jews and evangelical Christians —
who have financed development in West Bank settlements that are widely
seen around the world as violating international law. Between 2000 and
2010, at least 40 American groups collected more than $200 million in
tax-deductible gifts to build schools, synagogues, apartments and
community centers in such communities.
Last
year, the American casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson made what he said was
his first investment in the region that is not inside Israel’s 1948
borders, pledging $25 million to build a medical school at Ariel
University, part of a large settlement-city that is among the most
vexing for two-state mapmakers.
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“My
many years in business have taught me that when a crack opens up in a
certain spot, it must not just be filled in, but rather the whole wall
has to be strengthened, and sometimes the entire building,†Mr.
Adelson said in a statement at the time. “The donation to Ariel
University is about building a Zionist wall in place of the crack.â€
Mr.
Moskowitz, a retired physician who built his wealth through hospitals
and bingo halls, has been involved in some of the most provocative
settlement projects, buying property in Arab neighborhoods just outside
Jerusalem’s Old City and turning them into apartments or yeshivas,
leading to intense clashes. He owns the Shepherd Hotel, an East
Jerusalem landmark that Israel began demolishing in 2011, exacerbating
tensions with Washington.
In
Bruchin, a settlement deep in the West Bank, the Moskowitz name adorns a
day care center that was built while the community was considered
forbidden even by Israel (a court in 2012 retroactively legalized it).
Mr.
Perl, the settlement leader, said he thought Mr. Moskowitz wanted to
turn the compound here into a hotel to lure tourists to Gush Etzion’s
wineries and hotel trails. But Mr. Oppenheimer, whose group organized
the site visit last week, noted Mr. Moskowitz’s history in the region
and said that his “goal was never to be businessman in Israel.â€
“He has a political goal,†he added.
As
Haaretz reported, public records show that the compound has been owned
at least since 2012 by the American Friends of the Everest Foundation,
whose sole backer is the Irving Moskowitz Foundation. According to its
2012 tax documents, the Everest Foundation controls the Scandinavian
Seamen Holy Land Enterprises, a company whose operations and purpose are
unclear beyond its having bought the property in 2008 from a small
Presbyterian-affiliated church group in Pennsylvania.
Chaim
Levinson, who broke the news in Haaretz, said he was alerted to the
renovation by passers-by who saw new security cameras at the site, as
well as construction workers carrying guns. He traced the activity to
Aryeh King, a Jerusalem city councilman who has worked on past projects
with Mr. Moskowitz’s family.
Mr.
King declined to comment for this article. Mr. Ben Ezra, the Everest
Foundation director, refused to be interviewed but faxed a
three-sentence response to a letter sent to him in Florida.
“Education
is an important subject within the philanthropic activity of the
foundation,†he wrote. “At this time, work is being done to make the
old buildings and grounds safe.â€
The
compound, built in 1947 by an American missionary doctor who was later
buried on the grounds, sits along Route 60, which runs south from
Jerusalem toward Hebron. It is a few hundred yards from El Aroub Refugee
Camp and not much farther from the West Bank village of Beit Ommar,
both sites of frequent confrontations between young Palestinians and
Israeli soldiers. On the day of a Peace Now visit, a Palestinian family
was pruning in the fields just outside the stone walls topped with
barbed wire that surround the former hospital.
Behind
a rusted green iron gate, grapevines are draped over parts of a
courtyard; a basketball hoop was visible, along with a single line of
colorful laundry belonging to the Palestinian family that lives at the
site and considers itself its caretakers. One family member, Nader
Samara, said the renovation started in January and focused on the two
largest buildings, “to make a hostel.â€
“It’s on hold,†Mr. Samara said last week.
Mr.
Perl, who showed up, uninvited, at the Peace Now tour, said he learned a
year ago that Mr. Moskowitz had bought the property, which he called
“a very important point†geographically.
“They decided to try and renew and make life in the place because it was empty,†he said.
“We are,†he added, “more than happy to help the Moskowitz family to do so.â€
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