TEL AVIV, May 10, 2009 (WAFA)- The Israeli government and Jewish colonizer organizations are working to surround the Old City of Jerusalem with nine national parks, pathways and sites, drastically altering the status quo in the city. The secret plan was assigned to the Jerusalem Development Authority (JDA), Haaretz Israeli Daily said, today.

Haaretz said that the JDA described the purpose of the project as 'to create a sequence of parks surrounding the Old City,' all in the aspiration 'to strengthen Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel,' in a report presented to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on September 11 last year.

The program, sponsored by the Prime Minister's Office and the mayor of Jerusalem, is secret and did not engage in any form of public discussion, Haaretz stated.

According to an analysis by Ir Amim, an Israeli non-profit organization dedicated to Jerusalem issues that impact on Israeli and Palestinians which exposed this detailed, confidential government plan, the motivation is to create Israeli hegemony over the area around the Old City, 'inspired by extreme right-wing ideology,' Haaretz reported.

Haartez added that, 'this program integrates with statutory program 11555, approved by the Jerusalem municipality in November 2007, designed to accelerate development [to six housing units per dunom, or some 24 units per acre] in one of the most important archaeological sites in Israel. The array of escalators, cable cars and tunnels included in the plan portend blatant signs of a biblical playground populated by settler organizations,' which the organization says will be carried out by ousting Palestinian residents.

The Daily said that Ir Amim charges that by exposing the existence of the program the public is granted, 'for the first time, a comprehensive view of how the government and settlers, working as one body, are creating a 'biblical' territorial reign which connects Armon Hanatziv and Silwan in the south, Ras al-Amud and the Mount of Olives in the east, and Sheikh Jarra in the north, by connecting all of the land east of E-1.'

In a letter sent in the fall of 2006 by David Barry, founder and director of the Elad organization, to state officials and bodies involved in the project such as the Israel Nature and National Parks Authority and the Israel Antiquities Authority, he explains that he cannot detail the project because 'we still cannot talk about them,' but hopes that the results will be evident in the near future, the newspaper declared.

Haaretz continued on saying that, in the letter, Barry writes that '... the widespread tourist activity, at whose center is the creation of the 'Ancient Jerusalem' campus connecting the three sites - the City of David, Mount of Olives and Armon Hanatziv - in each of the three sites we are holding tourist activity on a daily basis.'

The map of Elad's 'Ancient Jerusalem' is, as Ir Amim explains, very similar to the map of the current historic basin project of the Old City.

Attorney Danny Seidemann of Ir Amim says that if the historic basin surrounding the Old City is transformed in the spirit of extreme rightist organizations, 'there is a dangerous interface between the program and settler projects whose goal is the prevention of a future political solution in the heart of the conflict.'

This plan is to prevent Palestinian Muslim and Christian worshippers from reaching their holy places; Al Aqsa Mosque and the Holy Sepulcher Church, as it facilitates Jewish worshippers arrival to the Wailing Wall.