The 'Lugano Plan': Erasing Yehud's Arab past
By Meron Rapoport
The first landmine appeared within the first minute of the interview
with Yehud Mayor Yossi Ben-David. Yehud was established in 1950, he
began, “on the foundations of the moshava [Jewish farming community]
here, some of whose homes were Arab houses from the period of the Turks
and the English.
Moshava? There was an Arab village here, if I'm not mistaken.
"An Arab village? I don't like using that concept, Arab village.
Tomorrow all the Arabs will come here, you know how it is."
....
The idea of renovating the old center is not a new one: The Interior
Ministry began developing a master plan for the area 10 years ago.
According to Yehud's municipal engineer, Monica Har-Zion, formerly the
engineer of the district planning council, the plan aimed to reconstruct
the ambience of the Arab village's casbah, while calling for the
destruction of many of the existing buildings. Yehud's political
leadership was unsupportive, however, so the program stalled.
The change came a few years ago. The previous mayor, Uzi Meir, visited
Lugano, Switzerland, with his then-deputy Yossi Ben-David. Both men were
excited by what they saw, and a new plan was born to replicate Lugano in
the center of Yehud. Meir began the process; Ben-David took it over and
ran with it. His offices look like an advertising agency, with select
Swiss pastoral photos and blueprints of the plan to bring Lugano to Yehud.
Ben-David is drawn to all things Italian. Like a textile merchant, he
travels frequently to northern Italy. True, Lugano is in Switzerland,
but it is the country's Italian canton.
Why Lugano, of all places?
"There's a huge commercial center there," Ben-David said. "Like in
Florence. If you've ever been to Florence, then you've seen how busy it
is during the evenings and weekends. It's an alternative to a mall, with
many more elements. There's a commercial center, a shopping center, a
residential center, a tourism center. Here [in Yehud] there will be
hotels like in Europe, small ones with 25 or 30 rooms, because the city
is close to the airport. Someone with a flight can come here [the night
before] and then go to the airport in the morning."
cont'd....
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/733783.html