A few days ago Adam Horowitz filed an important piece for this site on the idea that settlers are now trying to "Juda-ize" Arab sections of Israel proper (whatever the border is). Today the Times caught up with him with a piece on the efforts to settle Silwan, a neighborhood of Arab East Jerusalem that uses that word "Judaize" in the lede . Horowitz again:
The Times should really be complimented for its article on Silwan, which is ground zero of the Israeli settlement project. Silwan is strategically located: between the Old City of Jerusalem and E-1, the track of land Israel wants to settle to complete its ring of settlements around Jerusalem. If Israel is able to settle Silwan, and E-1, then any hope for Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine is over (assuming it isn't already), and the West Bank will be completely separated into North and South cantons. Silwan is also an interesting case of Israel using archaeology as a weapon in its effort to establish the "City of David" and claim more and more Palestinian land. Although the Times's Kershner doesn't go into that in depth (as that link does), she does allude to this being part of a broad plan.
Unfortunately, the Times quotes a Jerusalem city spokesman at face value: "A spokesman for Jerusalem City Hall, Gidi Schmerling, rejected the accusations [of expansionism], saying that municipal enforcement is carried out equally and according to the law in the eastern part of the city and the predominantly Jewish western part. He added that the demolition of the houses, which were built on public land, was carried out after the residents lost their appeals in the district and supreme courts."
This claim has been disproven many times. One of the most telling statements has come from Amir Chesen, an adviser to Jerusalem mayors Teddy Kollek and Ehud Olmert: "In Jerusalem, Israel turned urban planning into a tool of the government, to be used to help prevent the expansion of the city's non-Jewish population. It was a ruthless policy, if only for the fact that the needs (to say nothing of the rights) of Palestinian residents were ignored."
Within Jerusalem, building permits have been awarded on a disproportionate basis to Arabs and Jews and demolitions have been carried out in a discriminatory manner. Approximately 55% of the building violations detected each year in Jerusalem are in Jewish neighborhoods, 72% of the home demolitions in Jerusalem are of Palestinian homes. Rabbis for Human Rights paints a sobering picture:
The [Jerusalem] Municipality grants an average of 150 - 200 permits a year for Arab housing and demolishes 25-50 units a year. Between 1967-2001, 80,800 units were built in Jerusalem for Jews, most of them with government subsidies and 44,000 of them on land expropriated in East Jerusalem. Some 19,900 homes were built for Palestinians. Only 500 were subsidized. Some 7,000 are deemed illegal by the Municipality.
The discriminatory nature of home demolitions was summed up
in 1998 by Jerusalem's
Deputy Mayor Haim Miller, "I don't sign demolition orders for Jewish homes,
only for Arabs."
This article is a great step for the Times, but there is still so much of the story to tell.
"Gidi Schmerling, rejected the accusations [of expansionism], saying that municipal enforcement is carried out equally." It is exhausting to consider people who do one thing and vigorously deny doing it, over a long period of time. The more people notice, the louder they deny it. Does not a part of their soul wither with each repetition? You just want Abraham Lincoln to grab them by their lapels, lift them off the ground, and shake them, scolding: "you don't fight fair!" as legend has it he did once, a long time ago.
That land belongs to the Jewish people. There is no such thing as a nation called "Palestine." It never has and never will exist as a nation, even the Arab countries don't want it or why don't THEY give up some land to establish it?
Heck the Arabs already stole over 2/3rds of what was supposed to be Israel, now their just trying to make excuses to get the last little bit. Too bad that will never happen, because there is a higher power who is bringing the Jewish people HOME!
Imagine a whole 'nation' made up of people with mentalities like that of 'David Cooper': spoiled, superstitious, priggish, holier-than-thou four-year-olds.
The NAZIs too had very active archeological troopers to dig up facts on the ground to support their umbrella myths that they were a superior people chosen by the highest power.
Gott mit uns on soldiers' belt buckles.
In this sense, the Crusades, Islam fighters, and the settler mentality
are the same.
Why would any Highest Power pick among his own creations a favorite? Doesn't such a notion of God diminish God's virtue and wisdom?
The same UN that authorized partition, hence the international
legality of Israel as a nation among nations, directly implied that
the native arabs in Palestine at the time were a people deserving of a state too, hence "Palestinians," just as the Jews there became
"Israelis" in the world's eyes.
Not until after WW1 did many of the arabs outside the mandate
get a world-recognized state of their own.
You can't have your cake and eat it too.