The saga of illegal construction involving Sheikh and engineer Ahmad Alyan from the Beit Safafa neighborhood in southern Jerusalem, which occupied enforcement authorities for years, has now taken a surprising media turn – his daughter, Bushra Alyan, completed the scientific track of the Palestinian high school matriculation exams, known as Tawjihi, with an average score of 99.6, earning her first place among students in the Jerusalem District of the Palestinian Authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, what should have remained a personal academic achievement quickly became a political public relations display, presenting the family of a man who violated building laws as a symbol of \u201csteadfastness\u201d in the face of Israeli law enforcement authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The academic achievement comes after a period during which Alyan acted in violation of planning and building laws. Beginning in 2010, Alyan waged a determined legal battle in an attempt to retroactively legalize a large residential structure that he had built without obtaining a lawful building permit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the years, despite warnings over the illegal construction offenses and accumulated fines totaling NIS 76,000, Alyan continued to maintain the illegal structure while pursuing legal proceedings that prolonged the process and postponed the inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The saga ended only after Alyan had apparently exhausted all the options available to him and the Jerusalem Municipality activated administrative demolition orders. In August 2022, and in a second round in September 2024, Alyan chose a process of \u201cself-demolition\u201d and removed the illegal structure himself in order to avoid additional fines and the costs of demolition by the municipality, including the substantial expense of police security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Footage of the demolition was used by Palestinian elements in East Jerusalem to create a viral propaganda campaign on social media, portraying the man who violated building laws as a victim of a \u201chousing crisis\u201d suffering from the alleged cruelty of the Israeli authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, the contrast between law enforcement and the demolition of the illegal structure on the one hand, and the daughter\u2019s outstanding examination results on the other, is being used by the Palestinian media and neighborhood activists to turn the family into cultural heroes. The local community in Beit Safafa in particular, and social media networks in East Jerusalem more broadly, are appropriating the girl\u2019s impressive achievements – she has also memorized the Quran – while embracing both the father, who violated Jerusalem\u2019s planning and building laws, and his high-achieving daughter, showering them with public warmth, honor and recognition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The saga of illegal construction involving Sheikh and engineer Ahmad Alyan from the Beit Safafa neighborhood in southern Jerusalem, which occupied enforcement authorities for years, has now taken a surprising media turn – his daughter, Bushra Alyan, completed the scientific track of the Palestinian high school matriculation exams, known as Tawjihi, with an average score […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":183585,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"9320","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[10327,9320,9314],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-jerusalem-news","category-main-item"],"acf":{"subtitle":"Bushra Alyan ranked first in the Palestinian high school matriculation exams in the Jerusalem District: how her impressive achievement became media material that obscures her father\u2019s actions"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}