So much for the economic peace the Israeli right is regularly trumpeting. A fine report by Ben Lynfield in the Forward shows the economic destruction of East Jerusalem under Israeli annexation. Great headlines for an American Jewish publication: “East Jerusalem Suffers Economic Tailspin. Checkpoints and Barrier Cuts City Off From Palestinian Customers”:
The failure of the Addar Mall is part of an alarming economic meltdown in East Jerusalem. The Palestinian sector of the city was once the shopping and business hub for Palestinians throughout the Israeli-occupied West Bank. But now, thanks to Israeli security checkpoints and a separation barrier begun a decade ago after a series of bloody Palestinian suicide bombings, East Jerusalem is isolated from its customer base in the West Bank — and caught in a seemingly bottomless economic tailspin.
“The city is dying,” businessman Nabil Feidy said. “East Jerusalem has always been poor, but the political situation and the wall have destroyed the economy completely.”…
According to a January 2011 report by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, since annexing East Jerusalem and many surrounding areas to form Jerusalem’s current borders, Israel has expropriated about one-third of the annexed territory — most of it privately owned Arab property — for residential construction reserved exclusively for Jews and for “green areas” within which building is not permitted.
No Palestinians sit on the planning boards that make these zoning and construction decisions. Wary that participating in elections would legitimize Israeli annexation, Palestinians have refrained from seeking posts on the city council and have no influence on the municipality. The key decisions impacting their daily lives are made entirely by Israelis.
The consequences of Israeli policy are evident in Palestinian neighborhoods. According to ACRI figures released in May, housing density in Arab neighborhoods is almost twice that of Jewish neighborhoods. The lack of available land forces many Palestinians to build homes where they can without first obtaining a building permit. Alternatively, Palestinians feel forced to leave the city and relocate to the West Bank, whereupon they lose the special residency status that gives them the right to enter Jerusalem freely as Palestinians.
Cutting Palestinian Jerusalem off from its WB hinterland (as well as choking the city from within) has taken a heavy toll not only on the Palestinian economy, but on religious, cultural and social life in general, both in the city and in the WB. Divide and rule.
Israeli policy is use every means possible to deprive the Palestinians of economic and cultural existence, death by a thousand cuts, so nobody notices, the Government of Israel’s attitude to the Palestinians is, please go away, our only wish is that you crawl under a rock and die.
East Jerusalem has been pauperised as a deliberate policy by the Zionists. The Palestinian city has been starved of investment and cut off from its hinterland for 45 years. But long run it doesn’t matter. Al quds lina
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xNtzGTRx_8
The Zionists are just another crowd of Crusaders . the city has survived worse.
I have always felt my fellow Palestinians in Jerusalem forgoing the right to vote is BLAME DUMB and STUPID! Not Petitioning the Israeli Supreme court for Israeli citizenship, as residents of Jerusalem, is not just DUMB, it is beyond DUMB and STUPID!
They need to call “the only democratic state in the Middle East” out and vote and take up Israeli citizenship. This nonsense of boycotting elections in Israel plays into the Apartheid regime hands. By voting they get representation and are constantly in the regime’s face. By having no representation, the regime can claim it is democratic and do what it wants. Representation means either the regime becomes more beholden to the elected representatives OR it will have to eliminate the façade of Democracy. Either way it brings the end of Apartheid that much closer.
In 2007, my mother passed away, I decided as an American to fly to Tel Aviv. My American passport by the way states my place of Birth as PALESTINE (even my official passport when I travelled on behalf the US government states PALESTINE as my place of birth), so whether the US State Department knows it or not they recognize PALESTINE. As you would expect I got the 6th degree from an Israeli agent about why was I visiting, when did I last leave Israel etc. etc.;
My favorite where was I born in Israel ?
My response to, I was born in Israel?! Then I want Israeli citizenship!
Her Response you cannot have Israeli citizenship unless you do military service!
My Response Well where is the paperwork, sign me up right NOW! I want my Israeli citizenship!
The look on this Israeli’s face was of horror you should have heard her try to stammer a response!
The problem as I see it is that we make it easy for the Apartheid regime, to get away with “the only democratic state in the Middle East” mantra. If the residents of East Jerusalem can get together with the ‘48 Palestinians in Israel, they can easily capture 25 or more seats in the Knesset, imagine them voting as a bloc.
It’s great to see the Forward looking at the middle east from a realist perspective.