Israel targets Jerusalem's Palestinians
By Laila El-Haddad in Gaza
Sunday 28 December 2003, 20:36 Makka Time, 17:36 GMT
Yasir Abu Mghair lives in the Jerusalem suburb of Beit Safafa. His
wife of seven years comes from Yabta village near Hebron.
However, since Yasir is an Israeli resident, he cannot visit Yabta
without prior planning and, due to an Israeli law passed last summer,
his wife who holds a West Bank identity card cannot stay with him in
Jerusalem.
As a result, the Abu Mghair family lives incognito, avoiding
checkpoints, hospitals and government institutions.
The law is the latest in a series of measures by the Israeli
government, aimed at reducing the number of Palestinians living in
Jerusalem.
It bars West Bank or Gaza Palestinians from obtaining residency status
or family re-unification permits in Israel or occupied East Jerusalem
by marriage to an Israeli citizen or city resident.
To slowly force Palestinian residents out of the city, the Israeli
Ministry of Interior is increasingly using Land expropriations,
identity card seizure, exorbitant taxes and difficult-to-obtain
building, family reunion and residency permits.
“Our occupation is of a different kind than in the West Bank or Gaza.
It has a clear strategy of annexing the land of East Jerusalem while
not annexing the people, but transferring them.”
Huda al-Amin, director,
Centre for Jerusalem Studies
This will alter the demographic balance and ultimately predetermine
the future status of Jerusalem.
“Our occupation is of a different kind than in the West Bank or Gaza,”
said Huda al-Amin, director of the Centre for Jerusalem Studies.
"It has a clear strategy of annexing the land of East Jerusalem while
not annexing the people, but transferring them,” she added.
According to the Israeli Human Rights group B’tselem, the development
of East Jerusalem, since its illegal annexation in 1967, has been
based on political considerations designed to strengthen the Israeli
control over the city, by creating a decisive majority of Jews.
In 1972, the Inter-ministerial Committee to Examine the Rate of
Development for Jerusalem, otherwise known as the Gafni Committee,
determined that a “demographic balance of Jews and Arabs must be
maintained as it was at the end of 1972”.
The ratio was set at 73.5% Jews to 26.5% Palestinians.
To this end, Israel constructed about 39,000 housing units
throughout East Jerusalem on land mainly expropriated from
Palestinians following the 1967 war, and has encouraged Jews,
especially those living abroad, to settle in them.
Israeli harassment
Peace activists plant olive trees
to protest Jerusalem settlements
Palestinians, who at 200,000 make up approximately 32% of the city’s
total population, are not allowed to build or live on this land and
obtaining a building permit for other areas in the city is a costly
and lengthy process.
As a result, most are forced to rent or leave the city altogether.
Meanwhile, through the 1950 Israeli Law of Return, Jews from any part
of the world are guaranteed a right to Israeli citizenship and as a
result a right to live in the city.
The irony of this situation has not escaped American Jerusalemites
like Deema, who was denied a residency permit because she lives
abroad.
Deema says the Israeli measures to force her out of the city are
intolerable.
She recalled her encounter with two young American Jews who recently
made Jerusalem their home and intended to move into the Old City.
“The irony is painful. Here are two women, both my age, who have lived
their entire lives in New Jersey. They have no family in Jerusalem or
Israel.
"Everything about them is American. And yet within a matter of months
they were able to settle in the city with financial support and hold
new Israeli passports,” Deema said.
Different laws
“There is no way I would agree to give up my rights to my home. So
right now I’m waiting for a solution, before I decide to return.”
Abu Khalid,
Palestinian expatriate
Palestinians who already possess Jerusalem identity cards are
increasingly finding it difficult to maintain their residency status
in Jerusalem.
A law passed by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government
in the late 1990s, declared that any Palestinian who has not lived in
the city for seven continuous years loses his residency rights.
The Netanyahu law, whose time limit has since been changed to three
years, does not apply to Israeli Jews.
Palestinians expatriates, like Cleveland-based Abu Khalid, are
particularly vulnerable to this law. Although he holds a Jerusalem
identity card, he was unable to attend his parents’ funerals in
Jerusalem a few years ago.
Abu Khalid feared he would be forced to sign a document on his way
back to the United States, forgoing his status as a Jerusalem resident
and thereby his right to live in the city at any point in the future.
Such tactics are commonly employed by the Israeli Ministry of Interior
to enforce the three-year law.
Israel denies family reunion
rights to Palestinians
By not returning, he can at the least guarantee his identity card will
not be confiscated. On the other hand, Abu Khalid has been unable to
visit his family.
It is the sort of decision that many Jerusalem residents who live
abroad are forced to make to retain their residency status.
“There is no way I would agree to give up my rights to my home,” said
Abu Khalid. "So right now I’m waiting for a solution, before I decide
to return.”
Restricted benefits
East Jerusalemites have a political status unique among Palestinians.
They are considered neither Israeli nor Palestinian citizens, but
rather “permanent residents” of East Jerusalem.
Nevertheless, Israel requires them to pay all the taxes that
''full-fledged'' citizens of the state pay, including the municipality
tax, income tax, value-added tax (VAT) and most recently, a TV tax.
“The Jerusalem Municipality has about 40% of its income from Arabs,
but spends about 5% on us”
Hisham al-Bakri,
East Jerusalem resident
However, they do not receive equivalent benefits. The physical
infrastructure of East Jerusalem is neglected and public services are
poor or non-existent in many suburbs of the city.
“The Jerusalem Municipality has about 40% of its income from Arabs,
but spends about 5% on us,” said East Jerusalem resident Hisham
al-Bakri.
“Residents of the old city live in a ghetto and from a social and
psychological angle it affects them. The families are getting bigger;
over 15 people live in something like 10 square metres or so on
average.
"In addition, there are a lot of settlements in and around the old
city; that provokes people and makes our lives difficult,” added Huda
al-Imam.
Heavy price
While the familiar blue Jerusalem ID card is the object of envy for
many West Bank and Gaza residents, who rarely get a chance to visit
the Old City, it remains a mixed bag for Jerusalemites.
"... demographic balance of Jews and Arabs must be maintained as it
was at the end of 1972”
Gafni Committee, Israel
“We are paying for it with gold, more than what it's worth and West
Bank residents envy us for it. But since we live in Jerusalem, we must
pay the price or leave,” said al-Bakri, who was forced to sell his
house and rent instead, in order to keep up with the hefty fees of the
city.
“They’ll find any excuse to make you pay extra. And in the end, if you
don’t pay they either imprison you or take your hawia [ID card] away.”
At the end of the day, most say their ID card is well worth the price
if it means they can remain in the city their ancestors had called
home for centuries.
“Of course, I will stay despite all of this. The more pressure they
put on us, the more incentive we have to stay put.”
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