|
I paid a visit to the city of Jerusalem, "the
expected capital" of the upcoming Palestinian state, the cradle
of the three heavenly religions
and one of the world's oldest cities.
It was first inhabited by the Canaanite Arabs followed by the
Jebusites, then the Palestinians.
My aim was to visit, learn and engage with
people whose homeland was fragmented into mostly occupied parts
that were called sixty years ago Palestine, historical
Palestine. This involved from the onset violation of visitors’,
especially Arab visitors’, right of movement and right to
closely examine the conditions of this country which have
rendered it a prison for its indigenous inhabitants; those
forgotten people who undergo all kinds of pressure and rights
violations to give in and leave their homeland for people who
flocked from all over the world to invade a land, which they
claimed to be a land without a people for a people without land.
One sees gloomy faces of residents who
quickly return to their homes by sunset. One notices also a huge
difference between East and West Jerusalem. Any one can notice
this salient and outrageous contrast between a beautiful part of
the city blessed with care and wealth. On the other hand, the
other part is neglected and marginalized like isolated slums in
outskirts of metropolitan cities.
Only 5%-10% of Jerusalem's budget is spent on
Jerusalem's Arab residents who account for 34 % of its
population, depriving them of suitable service and
infrastructure. Also, two thirds of them live under poverty
line.
Since the first day of occupation of
Jerusalem in 1967, the occupying state started demolishing
houses, to later impose a military system and carry out ethnic
cleansing, detentions, deportations and cancellation of
citizenship rights.
Only one month after 1967 defeat, the
occupation demolished 5000 houses. Neighborhoods were fully
demolished, including Magharba neighborhood which was
established in the era of Saladin at Al-Buraq Wall neighborhood.
Also, some mosques were turned into Jewish synagogues, tourist
and trade places and even camel pens.
Some Islamic graves that contained remains of
some Companions of the Prophet were desecrated and their remains
were moved to undisclosed places. Also, the archives of the
Islamic Sharia Court were confiscated, and the Supreme Islamic
Council building was demolished although the Waqf (endowment)
status doesn't perish with the passage of time. Then, "secret"
forgery and excavations were carried out under Al Aqsa Mosque.
They continue through today..
Papers of illegally moving ownership of 120
buildings to settlers through forged documents have been
revealed. The occupation authorities controlled more than 60
thousand square meters of lands and confiscated more than 100
buildings and houses in the vicinity of the mosque, turning them
into settlement outposts in which more than 50 Jewish synagogues
have been built so far.
The operation is still going as dozens others
are opened and as the authorities started to build the world's
biggest Jewish synagogue. This means that 90 % of Arab lands are
put under control of occupation authorities (including 34 %
confiscated, 40 % natural reserves, 10 % suspended lands, 6 % of
the infrastructure and roads).
Al Aqsa Mosque, whose key buildings and
landmarks are built on a total area of 144 square meters, has
faced not only looting and robberies including seizing Al-Buraq
Wall that the occupation authorities renamed the Wailing Wall,
but it also suffered the demolition of Magharbeh Gate in early
2007. In its place a building was erected in addition to a
bridge, buildings and fortresses which bear no relation to this
place.
The occupation authorities intensified
excavations in and below Al-Aqsa courtyard from southern wall
till the Rock Mosque in its northern part and from its east to
its west. It also makes tunnels to give access to trucks and
bulldozers and eliminate Islamic monuments and appearances and
to claim the presence of Temple Mount below Al Aqsa Mosque,
seriously posing dangers to its foundations, walls and to many
of the buildings and houses in its vicinity.
Although there are cracks and collapses in
its western and southern walls, the occupation authorities
refused the Islamic Endowments Department to restore the ruined
parts in its courtyard, in Al-Buraq mosque, Old Al Aqsa Mosque,
Marwani mosque and in its affiliated schools.
Meanwhile, Palestinians living in Gaza Strip
and the West Bank are still denied access to the mosque to pray
inside it. Only certain age groups of Jerusalem and Green Line
residents are given access provided that they obtain an
administrative permit from authorities in their place of
residence. The occupation authorities launch a fierce war on any
thing or anyone that may reinforce Palestinian resistance, fight
occupation or expose Judaization schemes.
Aqsa Foundation for Reconstruction of Islamic
Sanctities was closed on 14th August last year, after occupation
authorities had started since 1996 to close Palestinian Islamic
movement institutions, arrest their leaders and confiscate their
documents and money to force them, under constant pressure, to
change its policies to avoid further arrests and closure of
institutions, and distract and overwhelm in defending itself,
while the occupation carries its schemes against al-Aqsa and
other Islamic sanctities.
It also aimed to highlight the marginal Arab
society and to reinforce Arab and Palestinian defeatism in the
face of Israelization. These measures aim also to show that
treating the Palestinians would be in accordance with emergency
laws.
Since the latest assault on Gaza, Judaization
operations have escalated. More than 2200 buildings and houses
and thousands of square meters are facing confiscation threats.
Al Ansari Library, the oldest and most important public cultural
library in Jerusalem, faces threats of evacuation and
destruction.
The occupation authorities are speeding up
measures of annexing and confiscating thousands of square meters
of lands and hundreds of buildings under various pretexts and
through issuing various orders, decisions and more than twenty
laws, the most prominent of which are: Laws of confiscating
absentees properties, natural reserves, green land and for the
public interest, and so on.
This definitely targets displacing Jerusalem
residents, so that the remaining, a decade from now, would be
only 12 % of their current population, i.e. a quarter of a
million, and increasing the Jewish population an additional
million in the coming decade.
In contravention to demands of the
international community and commitments of the Road Map, the
Hebrew State is speeding up its illegal seizure of East
Jerusalem through building settlements and demolishing houses of
the Palestinians and building the Separation Barrier that
divides and fragments East Jerusalem and worsens the economic
problem of for its Arab residents.
In addition to the Jerusalem municipality's
strictness in giving building licenses to Palestinians of
Jerusalem, preventing them from vertical and horizontal
expansion in building, it may allow an exception which is very
costly indeed, i.e. 25 thousand dollars for building a
residential apartment. Meanwhile, Jews are given all required
licenses and facilitations in return for very little fees. Due
to this restriction, some were forced to build their houses
without these licenses, giving authorities a pretext to demolish
them.
Therefore, more than 400 houses have been
demolished since 2004, while no less than 1000 houses are
expecting demolition orders. The authorities do not grant the
houses to Israelis to reside in them after evicting owners.
These eviction measures are capped by the
occupation authorities withdrawing identity cards of as many
Jerusalemites as possible. No less than 40000 IDs have been
withdrawn. The occupation authorities require that blue IDs must
be received from the Interior Ministry, in addition to other
papers like water bills, electricity bills and taxation papers,
in order to verify residence in Jerusalem.
The authorities rely on many pretexts:
Amending laws of entry, residence according to years of absence
and getting a foreign nationality and others. The occupation
authorities have started to close houses of the Jerusalemite
under pretext that they did not live in them for a period of
time although they show official documents that refute such
allegations. Also, they deny Palestinians holding a foreign
passport residence in Jerusalem, effectively making them a
tourist who is obliged to renew his residence visa every three
months. In addition to this, couples can't reunite if a spouse
is from outside Jerusalem, otherwise, the violator faces prison
sentence and the partner gets fined.
Israel's goals aren’t restricted to political
and demographic aspects, but they include also the cultural and
religious aspects by removing the Arab and Islamic identity of
Jerusalem city, and replacing it with a Jewish identity as much
as historical and religious aspects are concerned.
Implementing plans of demolition and eviction
have recently been accelerated to turn Jerusalem into a Jewish
city after emptying it of its Arabs residents by 2020. Figures
show that about 260 thousand Arabs live in East Jerusalem
compared to more than 182 thousand Jews. Building the separation
wall evicted 1635 families out of the city, i.e. about 100
thousand Arabs, to build Greater Jerusalem and impose a
demographic domination for Jewish colonists in "The Sacred
Basin" and impose a new reality on the ground.
A reality is also imposed on the ground
through economic and tourist investments to force, when
arrangement for the situation are completed, a recognition of
Jerusalem as a capital of Israel. Settlement building has
increased in the first half of 2008, 1.8% increase more than the
previous year according to the Central Bureau of Statistics.
Through intensive settlement building, the
occupation authorities work for removing the so called Green
Line. There are no less than 192 thousand settlers illegally
living in 12 settlement outposts in East Jerusalem, these
settlements include also agricultural, industrial and military
settlements. The occupation authorities encourage their
expansion through giving tax breaks and broad financial
projects. This creates a final reality on the ground, one which
will be decisive in any upcoming talks.
The Hebrew State, that declared annexing East
Jerusalem in 1980 after it occupied it in 1967, still refuses to
accept 19 UN resolutions that see Jerusalem as an occupied
territory. The Israelis have imposed through Knesset bill law
ratified in late 2007 stipulating not conceding East Jerusalem
in any solution that their governments reaches unless it is
approved by a two third majority of MKs, i.e. 80 out of 120 MKs.
This seems very difficult today, especially as an ultra rightist
government is now at the helm.
Since resolution 303 was issued by UN General
Assembly on 9th December 1949 the city of the three heavenly
religions was granted a special international status, with
highlighting a protection to sacred places and respecting
religious, cultural and social privacies for all its residents.
However, the occupation state tabled this resolution and has
never respected it.
As for the supervising body, that consists of
five Security Council permanent member states, delegated with
implementing the resolution, it has been suspended since 1994
Oslo agreement took effect.
The Hebrew state has never allowed the United
Nations to practice any administrative authority over Jerusalem,
distorting the United Nations credibility all over the world,
not only among Arabs. The United Nations sees that Israel has
annexed Jerusalem by military force and occupation in spite of
all its resolutions including resolutions 181 and 242 issued by
the Security Council. This annexing of the Holy City is also in
contravention to the UN General Assembly resolution 303
stipulating that any measure that a government takes can't
prevent the supervising body from maintaining the status of
Jerusalem city as it adopted it.
According to the Special Rapporteur on the
Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories
Occupied Since 1967, Israel’s actions in the Occupied
Territories indeed violate fundamental norms of human rights and
humanitarian law and cannot be justified on grounds of
self-defense or necessity. If the United Nations is serious
about human rights, it cannot afford to ignore this Opinion in
the deliberations of the Quartet, as it is an authoritative
affirmation that Israel is in serious breach of its
international commitments. Failure to attempt to implement, or
even to acknowledge, an advisory opinion dealing with
international humanitarian law and human rights law, brings the
very commitment of the United Nations to human rights into
question.”
The Hebrew State is only UN member state that
has not declared borders, enabling it to continue swallowing the
Palestinian territories without restriction. It is also the only
country that does not have a constitution and sees that is home
to every Jew in the world. It is the country that the United
Nations conditioned, for recognition, accepting the return of
Palestinian refugees and the emergence of an Arab country but it
did not respect either of these two conditions.
It is also the only country that makes
religion and ideology a reason for driving people out of their
land, replacing them with anyone claiming Judaism. As for the
six million persons who were driven out of their country and are
now refugees all over the world, there is no signed agreement
that establishes their return to their homeland.
In spite of all the humiliating agreements,
concessions and talks, the number of settlers in the West Bank
since Oslo Agreement in 1993 has jumped from 190 thousand to
half a million today.
25 % of its lands have been swallowed in
building the racial discrimination barrier and expanding
Jerusalem and Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The remaining
of historical Palestine is only 22 % which isn't practically
appropriate for establishing a state after divisions and
fragmentations into Bantustans to isolate people and deny them
the chance to communicate with each other.
Unfortunately, this situation and the
demographic, geographical, social and economic changes were met
by only individual and personal reactions in the absence of an
all-out Arab Palestinian Islamic and Christian strategy to
protect the city.
There is no clear policy to confront projects
of settlement building and Judaization. The Palestinian
Authority seemingly has no relation with Jerusalem residents and
it doesn't know how to deal with the city's file. Many warn that
dark days are coming ahead in Jerusalem, as we may wake up to
see a city that used to be called Jerusalem. As for its
residents who hear calls for remaining steadfast and restive,
they have never received compensation for their resilience.
Ehud Barak said one day to Yasser Arafat “You
own what is above land in Jerusalem and we own what is below
it", but this was rejected. However, Israel is operating out of
insatiable greed, which isn't restricted to Oslo agreement or
other agreements, to the extent that it owns both what is above
and what is below earth in this city.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority
continues to hold talks and meetings with only meager results.
This helps the Zionists to usurp lands, loot wealth and steal
underground sources of energy, gas, waters and stones to build
houses of settlers and even monuments to decorate houses of the
settlers too.
|
