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.
There are 5 Palestinian populations divided and ruled by the bots- Gaza under Hamas , East Jerusalem under Likud, 1948 Palestinians in Israel also under Likud , West Bankers under Fatah and the refugees outside the Zionist space. The Palestinians need to work together.
link to thecornerreport.com
Fragmentation became the major tool of Israeli control, to preserve their rule over Israel/Palestine from the river to the sea. Fragmentation serves them as insurance against the “demographic threat” when, very soon, the Palestinians achieve a numerical majority in the region. The ruling Jewish community will continue, even when it becomes a minority, to force this split on the Palestinians with the usual carrots and sticks, dictating the agenda, presenting threats, imposing collective punishments and bribery. This will preserve and even deepen the lack of coordination, the conflicting interests of the splintered Palestinian communities and insure the dominance of the internally fragmented but externally cohesive Jewish community over the fragmented Palestinians, thus sustaining the status quo.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the policy of fragmentation was aimed at the small minority of “Israeli Arabs.” Now it is being put into practice in the most sophisticated fashion against five million Palestinians, attracting almost no attention. It is not accidental that Israeli propaganda has no interest in stressing the achievements of the fragmentation; On the contrary, Israel aims the bogey of “existential threat” against a monolithic adversary, to rally against “the dark forces of Islamo-fascism.” In this, they are unwittingly assisted by leftist circles and the “Peace Camp” that remain steadfast to the romantic notion about a cohesive Palestinian people, united in its struggle for freedom, They are joined by Palestinian spokesmen who view talk about the success of fragmentation as hostile propaganda. Even those who are informed and knowledgeable are surprised when the extent of the fragmentation process is brought to their attention. Attention is diverted to marginal issues, and various competing organizations are supporting each fragmented group, pursuing different agendas and clamoring for attention, thus exacerbating the fragmentation, and increasing the confusion. The paradox is that serious attempts to deal with separate Palestinian agendas, which purport to challenge the status quo, are actually strengthening it.
The high profile of “international relations” and the diplomatic discourse is the most glaring example. Useless negotiations and lengthy expert discussions on “core issues” are going on decade after decade without any change in the stale arguments and counter arguments, while the reality is transformed and the “peace process” serves as a curtain behind which divide- and –rule is entrenched.
It is true about the fragmentation – and you could add that of the fifth group, those in exile, they are fragmented according to which countries they fled to and where they were educated and what citizenships or travel documents they obtained.
You are also correct about the “official” response of spokespeople and activists: “We are all one.” This is especially common when they are on the defensive and in public. In private and when they know you are their friend and ally and not going to go public and embarrass them they will admit to all sorts of shortcomings in their society. I could give many examples but the most glaring was the need to publicly defend Yassir Arafat while privately so many who did so actually despised him.
I find the same among many Jewish folk – once they trust me they start telling me all sorts of nasty stuff about themselves and I have to tell them to stop being anti-Semitic.
This phenomenon of what people say in public versus what they say in private is why we have to be so careful of information from reporters and delegations who blow in and out of the Middle East on fact finding tours.
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.
Original sins, Beit Hallahmi, 1992, Pluto Press
link to amazon.com
“The power of the Palestinians is their existence and their existence so close to Israeli. they carry the veto power over Israel’s future, and the power to forgive. ”
P 210
“Israelis seem to be trapped in a peculiar and impossible situation. There is no exit and their backs are to the wall. Any concession to the Palestinians may lead to the unravelling of the entire Zionist enterprise. While Israelis seem militarily superio they feel deeply insecure. Israelis worry about repeating the history of the Crusaders and this fear is a worm eating into their souls. ”
P 211
I think Mondo could do with a reading list.
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
link to youtube.com
The Zionists are just another crowd of Crusaders . the city has survived worse.
Al Quds lina
Yes. Until liberation and return.
Hatta al tahrir wa al awda
I was in ahla Falastin in 2003 and on a sherut from the city to Ramallah and there were components of the apartheid wall lying on the ground in al Ram, massive concrete blocks that the bots think say “f*ck you Palestine*”, so much power, all that mass , the impunity . And there was one block and on it was a spray painted graffito – “al Quds lina” and that for me was the essence of sumud. Sure they have their guns and they have Congress in their pocket but al Quds lina.
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.
Habibi, don’t be calling them dumb and stupid, though I agree with you on your conclusion. The weight of the Zionist onslaught and the cunning with which it is executed makes it very difficult for Palestinians to discern the most shrewd way to defend themselves. The violent reaction – a natural one, which was more justified than any of the wars of the American empire – was counterproductive in the end and resulted in even more losses. But other reactions have also not produced success.
The first stage of the one country movement is to publicize the project and gain it wide respectability. That is happening. Beyond that we have to imagineer (a Disneyland word I learned recently) practical steps. I think one of the next steps is for Palestinians whenever and wherever possible gain and exercise the right to vote in Israeli elections. The step after that is to demand a full and formal annexation of the West Bank and Gaza. Force Zionism to choke on its own contradictions.
About twenty five years ago the Palestinian Mubarak Awad announced that he was converting to Judaism with the intention of applying for Israeli citizenship under the law of return. The entity went into a panic as though the biggest terrorist operation ever was about to happen. Rabbis in the US received an organized alert to be on the lookout for this guy and not convert him. And apparently he wasn’t even serious. It was guerrilla theater.
It’s great to see the Forward looking at the middle east from a realist perspective.
In a funny way BDS is about doing to the bots what they have been doing to the Palestinians since 67. It’s the economy. And there are more goys than bots.
“But now, thanks to Israeli security checkpoints and a separation barrier begun a decade ago after a series of bloody Palestinian suicide bombings”
Barrier doesn’t stop bombings because there are tons of Palestinians that already pass the green line illegally anyway.
Dividing the city will create massive tension and further impact negatively on both economies. Does anyone doubt what I am saying?
Also, dividing the city will restrict the free movement of either Israeli Muslims or Palestinian Muslims. One of these groups will need to go through a checkpoint or passport control.
RE: “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” ~ Ben Lynfield
FOR A LITTLE CONTEXT SEE: “The Dogs of War: The Next Intifada”, By Uri Avnery, Counterpunch, 9/03/11
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – link to counterpunch.org