Ramot, East Jerusalem

Heights), also known as Ramot Alon (Hebrew: רמות אלון), is an Israeli settlement and neighborhood in East Jerusalem.

[7] One tradition associates biblical Rama with one of the highest peaks of the Judean Hills, reaching 885 meters above sea level.

However, since part of the neighborhood has been built across the Green Line in East Jerusalem,[22] the international community considers Ramot to be an Israeli settlement.

[25] Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, said "the settlements are illegal under international law, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make the two-state solution impossible".

[25] Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator for the PLO, said the announcement "shows Israel's clear commitment to the destruction of peace efforts" and that international community should "sever all ties with the Israeli occupation ... [to] ... protect and help to realize the two-state solution".

[25] In the context of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, the Clinton Parameters[26] and Geneva accords[27] proposed keeping Ramot (and other Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem beyond the green line) under Israeli sovereignty, possibly in exchange for other land.

[29] Ramot Polin Apartments, designed by Zvi Hecker, have been named as one of the "World's Strangest Buildings" and has been described as a "housing project for honeybees".

[30] The entire neighborhood is organized upon a hill in central Ramot in a shape resembling a five-fingered hand or three-branched leaf.

In November 2009, 30-foot high bronze sculpture depicting a waving American flag turning into a flame was unveiled in Ramot, part of a five-acre memorial plaza for the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The sculpture, located in Arazim Valley, was the first memorial outside New York to list the names of the 2,974 people killed in the attack.

Israeli sculptor Eliezer Weishoff said the memorial had to be moved 200 yards from the planned site to accommodate gazelle migration pathways.

[44] Khirbet Tililiya is the site of an ancient ruined fortress on a high hill in the center of Ramot Alon.