We tend to focus on the most dramatic aspects of Israel's efforts to force Palestinians out of Jerusalem and "judaize" the city, such as the massive home demolitions in Silwan or the plans for Israeli settlements in E-1. But the reality is that the most effective ways Israel exerts control over Palestinians are in the mundane details of daily life.
This past weekend at the One State for Palestine/Israel: A Country for All Its Citizens? conference in Boston, Palestinian Professor Saree Makdisi offered the following description of Israel's policies in Jerusalem. It mirrors the style he took with his book Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, which looks at the administrative mechanisms Israel uses to control Israel/Palestine. Makdisi explained:
The Judaization of Jerusalem is a cynical exercise in social engineering, according to John Dugard the former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. In pursuit of its claim that Jerusalem is a Jewish city, Israel has revoked Palestinians' rights to residency, it has forcibly ejected them from the city of their birth, it has denied their applications for family reunification, it has refused to register the birth of their children, it has devised laws intended to separate families from each other, and compelled children to leave their parents in effect at the age of 18, it has built a wall to force Palestinians to choose between jobs in the West Bank and homes in Jerusalem or the other way around, and it has made it as difficult as possible for them to build homes on land in Jerusalem that their families have owned for generations.
What is at stake here of course is Israel's desire to consolidate its claim that Jerusalem is, as that slogan has it, 'the eternal and undivided capital of the Jewish people.' By its very nature the process of consolidating this claim excludes the Palestinian claim to the city and puts an end to any thought that the city can be shared equally between two separate states.
Update: From the comments section, Helena Cobban pointed us towards two great resources. First, an article she recently had in The Nation "After Gaza: Jerusalem?" and "A Layman’s Guide to Home Demolitions in East Jerusalem" a resource from the Israeli NGO Ir Amim.
Israel has been most successful at Jerusalem– that is where they have done the most long-term damage to the Palestinians, but I still think they will run out of time. The proverbial sh-t will have hit the fan long before they have finished this proces of ethnic cleansing.
American consciousness is waking up all over the place– I have family members emailing me all the time about how they are writing their congressmen. Just look at the message-boards at any American newspaper, and they are filled with hate for Israel. Multiply this by 10 times and you have Europe.
Sorry, Israel, but that is the reality outside of your fascist bubble. Reality is not going to be kind to ideology in this case, but when has ideology ever captured reality?
Right about the importance of Jerusalem. Check what i wrote about it in The Nation last week.
Also, check all the really handy info on the Ir Amim website. Especially this doc there.
The Judaization of Jerusalem is a cynical exercise in social engineering, according to John Dugard the former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.
Mr. Dugard is being diplomatic with his language. The 'social engineering' he refers to is creeping ethnic cleansing, usually executed one house or one family at a time to keep it out of the news. It is fundamentally racist and it is utterly inconsistent with American values to continue taxpayer subsidization of these crimes.
Obama says:
"Look the other way while this is happening – Yes We Can!"
The real estate market is financing the expansion of the settlements.
By its very nature the process of consolidating this claim excludes [anyone else's] claim to the city and puts an end to any thought that the city can be shared equally between two separate states.
The Jordanian/Palestinians made the attempt to arabize and islamize the city from 1948 to 1967. While they failed, miserably, they did prove that the Arab islamist goal is to erase all signs that Jews ever live there. They proved that the city can not be shared with arab muslims.
Do tell us more, oh wise Chris Berel.
Chris,
Was it Arabize or Islamize?
As near as I can gather of the history at the moment from the internet (virtually all from Jewish sources though), Chris Berel has made a reasonable argument. A caveat at this time is that the Palestinian arabs
themselves had little to do with happened under Trans-Jordan-Jordan rule 1948-'67, aided & abetted by Arab accomplices or fellow travelers from other Arab states. Seems the Pals were simply helpless pawns in general, as it seems they were mostly too, for example 1947-'48. I'm not sure one can conclude the currently more nationalized Pals, aware of being victims from every side for so long, are not amenable
to a solution other than what Jordan did during its rule.
i doubt if he means "that Jews ever lived there', in the normal, common-sense meaning of the phrase: I suspect what he means is, any supposed trace that 'Jews' (or their supposed ancestors) built a bloody great temple there at the dawn of time.
@ CM: "The 'social engineering' he refers to is creeping ethnic cleansing, usually executed one house or one family at a time to keep it out of the news. It is fundamentally racist"
If nothing else, Israel is demonstrating to the world how fascist-like left-liberalism and other authoritarian Statist "secular" victim ideologies really are. The Nazis gave fascism a bad name, but authoritarian, Big Government social-engineering at gunpoint remains its more couth twin, like it or not.
Bush and his Neocon spinmeisters understood this, hence came up with all kinds of progressive rationales for the Iraq war. Same with Clinton and his Neolib spinmeisters and the Balkans war and the Iraq sanctions. They're all just bringing diversity and secular discipline to a stubborn, backward, overly religious people, or so the narrative goes. The Jewish character of Israel simply makes it harder to hide the fact that they are all merely seeking to replace one religion with another.
In the case of Israel, their religion is the synagogue of Zionism. In the case of Bush and Clinton, their religion is the Church of Uncle Sam. In the case of those even further Left, their religion is the Church of Big Brother. That some or all of these profess to be secular, hence more just and scientific, is just window dressing.
"I suspect what he means is, any supposed trace that 'Jews' (or their supposed ancestors) built a bloody great temple there at the dawn of time."
I believe he meant that there has always been a (non-disapora) Jewish presence in Jerusalem.
I'm sure the anti-Israel revisionists have tried to erase that one from the history books too. To no avail.
suzanne, what the anti-palestine revisionists are doing is on a scale so much greater that it pales in comparison…
Not to worry, Israel's Netanyahu says he can work with Obama
Oops, wrong thread.
oh for the love of the Jupiter, please lose the melodrama.
Occupations are always a nasty deal, and this one has gone on for far too long and needs to end (I say give Jordan the entire West Bank PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
But it's not like Palestinians are on the verge of extinction or going to be exterminated. The only idiots who say that are warmongers itching for Iran to attack Israel.
There'd be a lot more mainstream concern about Palestinians if the Left knocked off the hyperbole. You're getting in your own way!
Iran wants to attack Israel? Since when?
I see far more warmongers wanting Israel and/or the US wanting to attack Iran.
And you want to let another country occupy the West Bank instead of occupying it yourselves? Here's an idea, why not let them rule themselves?
Palestinians are on the verge of extinction in Jerusalem, which is what the post was all about, if you bothered to read it.
Citizen,
From my studies, which include both books, old and new, as well as the internet, Chris as usual overstates and gets it essentially wrong. Unfortunately the internet is not always a good source for getting detailed historical information from the area.
My sense is this:
After Jordan won the fight to keep East Jerusalem, which included the Old City, approximately 2000 to 3000 Jewish civilians living in that area were captured by the Jordanian army and delivered into the hands of the Israelis who controlled West Jerusalem. I could find no word one way or the other on whether any of them were given the option to remain in Jordan-controlled territory, but given the wartime circumstances it probably would have been foolhardy to do so and I think it can be safely said that that small number was "ethnically cleansed" from Old Jerusalem. Its to be condemned just as any other ethnic-cleansing is condemned, but that is old history and no Jewish Israeli is banned from Jerusalem now, which is not the case for Palestinians. And the number of Jews removed from Jordan-controlled Jerusalem in 1948 pales in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians forcibly removed from their homes in Israel at the same time.
Most of the Jews who lived in Jerusalem at the time lived in West Jerusalem, as this was where most of the Jewish owned property was. Most of what was called the Jewish Sector of the Old City was in fact owned by Palestinians. A large holding of Jewish owned property around Mt. Scopus, with Haddassah Hospital and Hebrew University, although wholly surrounded by Jordanian territory, was in fact still guarded by Israeli police, as it was in an area maintained as a demilitarized zone under auspices of the UN as the result of the Israeli-Jordanian armistice agreement. There were strict rules limiting the resident populations in this demilitarized zone, both non-Jewish(Arab) and Jewish, that made running the hospital and the university at that location impossible during that time, but it was always maintained as Jewish owned property, under Jewish control.
I could find no reliable or specific account of any desecration of Jewish holy sites by Jordan, although there are lots of unsubstantiated and undetailed non-specific claims of such by hasbara sites. Desecration of Christian and Moslem holy sites by Israel or Israelis are described in numerous Israeli histories of this era and beyond. All Israelis were banned from entering Jordan(includig East Jerusalem), whether to worship or not, but this included ALL Israelis, not just Jews. Israeli Arabs were not allowed to worship at the Al-Asqa mosque or see the Dome of the Rock either. Jews from any other country were not prohibited from visiting Jordan or going to any of the holy sites. My great aunt went there in the early to mid Sixties.
The ban on Israelis worshiping in Jordanian-held Jerusalem was unjust, but considering the violent tensions along the border between the two countries at the time I suspect that the ban probably saved lives.
If you want to read a contemporary account from a US naval officer who was assigned to the UN monitoring force along the border (and stationed in Jerusalem), there is an old book called "Violent Truce: A Military Observer Looks at the Arab-Israeli Conflict,1951-1955" by E.H. Hutchinson. Its quite amazing in one sense that so little has really changed. Things that Israel does and gets away with today are much the same as what they got away with over 50 years ago.
I might also suggest reading "Taking Sides" by Stephen Green, which covers US-Israeli relations during the era from 1948 to 1968.
Shafiq, oh yeah, I forgot. Israel is always the aggressor. Maybe I can get a microchip and have that proppie programmed into my brain.
Anyway…I keep bringing up the West Bank but it's Gaza that's really the problem.
In fact, maybe the next issue will be whether the West Bank even wants to share nationhood with Gaza.
This is also a great article which details that which Phil is highlighting:
http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=18868&CategoryId=13
The Little Things That Pass Us By
Suzanne, there is no point in trying to sound sarcastic about statements that are factually correct, like Israel is always the aggressor.