Jerusalem
is each lie treated like truth,
and each truth treated like a lie.
Jerusalem
is a divine crime scene,
a crime committed with the hands of the holy.
Jerusalem
is a beheading of the hydra,
a lynching of those who speak just.
Mohammad al-Kurd (c)
These words are from a poem by a 16 year old Palestinian poet Mohammad Al Kurd, who lives in the Occupied East Jerusalem village of Sheikh Jarrah. Mohammad lives in the cramped back section of his home with his extended family, while Israeli religious settlers occupy the relatively new front section of the house. They are men or unemployed youths who come in shifts for weeks or months at a time with their dogs. The windows are boarded up and their only purpose is to occupy the front rooms. Due to the exceptional difficulty for Palestinians to obtain building permits in East Jerusalem, Mohammad and his family have been subject to this situation since 2009 when the Israeli courts deemed the family’s front extension illegal and allowed settlers to move in.
“..Even if they were not violent, even if they were ‘nice’ settlers, it would be unacceptable. They believe that they have the right to make Jerusalem a Jewish land just because God told them to. But, little do they know that God is not a real estate agent and it’s politically, morally and logically inaccurate for them to say they have the right to Judaize a city just because of some words on a page.”
During the last 6 months of 2014 Jerusalem witnessed a series of attacks and gruesome murders of both Israelis and Palestinians. In this holiest of cities, the place of pilgrimage and worship for Muslims, Christians and Jews, violence erupted on the streets in a way not seen in the city for many decades.
Listen to the long form documentary radio feature about the politics of dispossession occuring in Jerusalem here:
https://soundcloud.com/cathypeters/jerusalem-a-divine-crime-scene
This explosion of violence can be traced to the increasing ‘Judiazation’ of the city, as it becomes more and more difficult for Palestinians to stay in Jerusalem, whilst Israeli settlers are building more homes, constantly raising the Israeli population. Government policies have worked to significantly reduce Jerusalem’s population of Palestinians in many ways. For example the city parameters were enlarged after 1967 to include significant areas of land from bordering Palestinian municipalities, thus giving the city a larger footprint on which Settlements have subsequently been built, while at the same time, excluding large Palestinian villages from this footprint. This, along with the removal of Jerusalem ID cards from Palestinian ‘residents’ living in Jerusalem and laws like the Absentee Property Law, have worked to alter the demography of the city in favour of Israelis.
Palestinians living in suburbs in Occupied East Jerusalem, close to the Old City like Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, Wadi al Joz and many more are facing increasing settler incursions into their villages and more frequent forced evictions and demolitions of their homes. If you are a Palestinian in East Jerusalem it’s unlikely you’ll be able to get a permit to build and if you do, it can take over 10 years to get the permit and cost around $30,000. So, many Palestinians in Occupied East Jerusalem and the Occupied West Bank either build without permits, at the risk of having their buildings demolished, or leave the city. These home demolitions are then charged to the owner and cost thousands of shekels – to avoid the cost Palestinians are often forced to demolish their own homes.
As Mohammed Al-Kurd commented, “We’ve been battling in the courts with them since the 70’s . . in 2009 they took the front section of our house.” According to the NGO, The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), since 1967, about 27,000 Palestinian homes and other structures have been demolished in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), including East Jerusalem.
Israel claims Jerusalem as its capital but to date, no country in the world has recognized this. The city’s status has always been highly contested and no more so than now, especially in the elevated Arab area in the Old City known as the Haram al Sharif or the Noble Sanctuary, where the Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock are located. This is the third most sacred site in Islam. Jews know it as The Temple Mount though and believe it’s the location of the biblical Temple of Solomon and also where the Second Jewish Temple was located in the first century BCE. Although practicing Jews are forbidden to enter this area by Rabbinical Law, repeated incursions by right wing members of the Knesset and Jewish religious zealots, have inflamed tensions in Jerusalem and right throughout the Occupied West Bank.
On Oct 20th 2014 dozens of Israeli settlers moved into two homes in Silwan. The settlers were thought to be affiliated with Ateret Cohanim, a religious Zionist organization that buys properties in the Old City and elsewhere in East Jerusalem to settle Jews. Members of this group and the settler organisation Elad, have been actively engaged in displacing Palestinians from Silwan and other Palestinian neighbourhoods that ring the Old City Walls.
Silwan is where the ‘City of David’ excavation is located and is also the site of Jerusalem’s earliest history, which dates back some 4,000 years. It’s a highly controversial site as it’s managed by the settler organisation Elad and uses biblically based archaeology for political ends to claim ongoing cultural and historical ownership of Jerusalem by Israelis.
Within the Old City in the Muslim quarter, large Israeli flags fly on homes that once housed Palestinians. These settlements, or colonies as many Palestinians call them, are increasing despite international condemnation. Even in the wake of the July 2014 assault on Gaza and the world’s horror at the disproportionate military attack on the civilian population, Israeli prime minister Netanyahu announced the approval of another 1000 settlement units in Jerusalem.
Although Palestinians comprise around 39% of Jerusalem’s total population, they are subject to many restrictions and laws that don’t apply to Israeli residents of the city. The dilemma for these Palestinians is that they are classed as ‘residents’ as most chose not to apply for Israeli citizenship when East Jerusalem was annexed in 1967. Palestinian Member of the Knesset Haneen Zoarbi comments,
“ We can say that Israel is a very democratic state for its Jewish citizens. It’s a racist state for its Palestinian citizens. I am saying this because the Israeli Knesset has passed fifty laws against previous rights of the Palestinians regarding land acquisition, land confiscation, housing, budgets, the right to learn our history inside the Arab schools, planning , Nakba laws and loyalty laws. In Israel, Palestinians are perceived to be either, in the best case, ‘guests’ or in the worst case, enemies or ‘security threats’ or invaders. “
As ‘residents’ of Jerusalem, Palestinians are required to have a Jerusalem ID which is increasingly hard to maintain. They cannot marry Palestinians living outside of Jerusalem as their spouses will not be given Jerusalem ID’s and will thus be unable to enter the city. They cannot lease property in most areas in West Jerusalem as non Israeli citizens. They cannot study or work for extended periods outside of Jerusalem or their ID’s will be revoked. They cannot rebuild or extend their properties and so as their families grow, they are unable to get permits to accommodate them. They cannot hold a Palestinian passport and must travel overseas using a Jordanian passport. Nahed was born in East Jerusalem but can’t live there,
“My kids were born in East Jerusalem but all the recent documents state that they were born in Israel, not in East Jerusalem. And this is part of their plan to change the area and to say that Jerusalem and East Jerusalem is now, part of Israel. . The Absentee Property Law is very dangerous because if any Palestinian who owns property in Jerusalem but can’t live there for any reason (like my situation), at any time they may take my property because I’m not living there. Because my husband is from West Bank and has say a West Bank ID, I can’t live there [because he cannot get a Jerusalem ID].”
For these Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, the situation is bleak as they have no real Palestinian representation in the city and cannot negotiate positive outcomes for their communities and neighbourhoods. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has no jurisdiction here, nor do Palestinian Knessset members like Haneen Zoarbi, “ There is no Palestinian leadership in Jerusalem. Israel has prevented any leadership for them. Israel put Jerusalem into a siege long before it put Gaza into a siege – it has disconnected Jerusalem from the West Bank. It has decreased the demography [of Palestinians] living in Jerusalem so thousands of ID cards have been withdrawn from those Palestinians living in Jerusalem. .”
The NGO Grassroots Jerusalem is working with Palestinian neighbourhoods to advocate for basic services as well as the larger issues of Palestinian ownership and self determination. Micha Kurz, from Grassroots Jerusalem sums up the situation, “If you’re not Jewish in Jerusalem, you don’t have the right to vote . .there’s no one in their [the Palestinians’] corner.. And Israel is getting away with it.. I mean practically speaking it’s over – Jerusalem is being ethnically cleansed and Israel is in third or fourth gear already. That’s something that people all around the world must come to terms with.”
Jerusalem
is hopes aborted,
fears fulfilled.
Jerusalem is sirens as a lullaby.
Jerusalem is tear gas as heavy perfume.
Jerusalem is truths unspoken,
or always spoken but never heard.
Jerusalem
is a woman holding her stone and throwing it
in the sky that they filled with F16s.
Mohammad al-Kurd (c)
Links to radio documentaries by Cathy Peters about Jerusalem:
Jerusalem – a divine crime scene
Presenter/producer: Cathy Peters
Engineer: Russell Stapleton
Broadcast on Earshot on ABC RN
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/earshot/jerusalem—a-divine-crime-scene/6633312
Jerusalem, religion and archaeology – an unholy mix
Presenter/producer: Cathy Peters
Engineer: Steven Tilley
Broadcast on Earshot on ABC RN
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/earshot/an-unholy-mix/6634114
More info
The Legal Status of Palestinians living in Jerusalem – http://www.pij.org/details.php?id=505
East Jerusalem’s Identity Crisis – http://www.jpost.com/In-Jerusalem/Features/East-Jerusalems-identity-crisis
East Jerusalem by the Numbers – http://www.acri.org.il/en/2013/05/07/ej-figures/
A history of violence over the contested Temple Mount, or Haram al-Sharif http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/5939772
Tragic Deaths of Teens do not justify collective punishment – Defense of Children International https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/146f946db5862c3e
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