What do people mean when they say that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel? You can see in the video below: Israel is colonizing the entire eastern half of the city and the supposed future Palestinian “capital” is far away and behind a 26-foot-high concrete separation wall.
The guide in the video is Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. We’re standing on a hill on the eastern side of the city, looking north and east at Palestinian neighborhoods.
You can see the Al Aqsa Mosque on the left (at 5:40) between the cypresses (enlarge the video if you have to) and Abu Dis on the right (at 5:25), closed off on the West Bank from the Palestinian city of Jerusalem.
Some of the highlights of the video: You will see the billboard for an Israeli settlement right below us being built inside the Palestinian neighborhood of Jebel Muhaber. The billboard features an appeal for American Jews to buy here. The colony is called Nof Zion, the vista of Zion.
At 2:08 you will see the black barrels on the tops of Palestinian homes alongside Israeli colonies with no such tanks — because the Israelis have all the water they need, and the Palestinians only get it a few times a week.
At 2:44 or so Halper points out Abu Dis, the supposed Palestinian capital of a dreamed Palestinian state, behind the wall on the right.
At 3:20 he points out a new Jewish colony being built on a hillside at the east side of these Palestinian neighborhoods, called the “Forefront of Zion.”
At 5:28 Halper points out the supposed Palestinian parliament building, on the other side of the wall.
You will hear Halper describe 3 or 4 colonies before our eyes. Some of them are built and growing, some are just started.
Halper describes the Israeli effort to bring more Jewish colonists in by building a modern road so they don’t have to go through Palestinian neighborhoods. The road will connect the Old City to Ma’ale Adumim, the city-settlement deep in the West Bank, and connect all the colonies we see before us.
This is the reality in Israel and Palestine: complete Israeli control over the territory, and the calculated colonization of that territory by Jews, so as to solidify Jewish control of Jerusalem. The Israeli capital.
Where’s the Palestinian capital? That’s it below, Abu Dis, on the other side of this 26-foot-tall wall:
Wall at Abu Dis
And watch all the signs of apartheid here: separate roadway, separate communities, separate standards of living.
The Democratic leadership gave their delegates all of 3 seconds to inform themselves and vote 3X on the Jerusalem plank in the Democratic Party platform. 3X it was a tie. The Latino chairman then decided it was a two-thirds vote in favor of recognizing Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel. How can you have the capitol of a country located outside the country?
Only in America, and only in Israel.
Sheldon Adelson’s donations are paying off.
So no part of Jerusalem is within Israel, much less the capital of Israel – even the western, uncontested area. But Jerusalem/Abu Dis is the capital of the non-existent country of Palestine?
Got it.
“So no part of Jerusalem is within Israel, much less the capital of Israel”
West Jerusalem is legally under Israel’s jurisdiction, but not its soverignty. Arab East Jerusalem is legally neither.
“non-existent country of Palestine?”
LMAO. “Palestine” is the country between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. In Palestine, there are two states: a Zionist entity called “israel” and a Palestinian state called “the State of Palestine,” which has been recognized by 65% of the states in the world.
mondonut September 7, 2012 at 4:37 pm
When was the so called “uncontested” area legally annexed to Israel? Corpus separatum was never instituted, it was not within the area allotted the Jewish State, was not declared or recognized as Israeli by any state. It has never been legally separated from Palestine. Try UNSC res 476.
mondonut says: “So no part of Jerusalem is within Israel, much less the capital of Israel – even the western, uncontested area…”
Lookit that! Mondonut recognizes the boundaries that Israel accepted in 1947!
…they’re the only legal set out there. Nice to see we’re making progress — even if slowly.
Why can’t they be a state with their capital in Eastern Jerusalem again? It seems like there’s some entity keeping them from doing that…
There was never a capital called “East Jerusalem” there is only one Jerusalem which was one when Israel defeated the Arabs in war. When the Arabs had Jerusalem they made no effort for it to be their capital, it wasn’t called “occupied then” and the occupiers treated the city with contempt. If that wasn’t enough in East Jerusalem along with 97% of all land was offered to the Egyptian terrorist Arafat – he refused preferring to wage an intifada killing over 1000 Israelis. They had their chance and on more than one occasion.
“he refused preferring to wage an intifada killing over 1000 Israelis.”
Yes, yes, yes, we can complain about the low body count all day long, but the important point is this: Arab East Jerusalem, to the green line, is what the Palestinians are willing to give the zionist squatters in the Arab Peace Plan. The fact that they don’t accept that demonstrates their bad faith.
It’s all nuts.
300,000 Palestinians who don’t belong in their own city.
It’s all “Jewish”
And Judaism says nothing.
Because anyone with a family member who is a psychopath learns to keep quiet.
Until now the costs of the occupation have been manageable. It still makes some sort of sense financially. But it is slowly corroding its way though Israeli civil society.
You can’t throw such much hatred against a subject people and expect your own society to function normally.
It is so sad to watch. I don’t feel sorry for the Palestinians as much now as I do for the Jews of Israel.
I can smell the trees beside Halper in the first minute, in the heat.
He’s really pink too. His roots are probably in Galicia
link to nybooks.com
Like those of many US Jews. The ostracisation from Europe and then American society played a big part in the development of the cult in Israel. The weak boy who never again wanted to have sand kicked in his face. And turned into a monster.
Jeff is a wonderful man, and I have no idea what his “roots” are. They might be in Africa. Mine are
It’s a real mess. European antisemitism cleared Poland of Jews.
link to haaretz.com
“When Karolina Wantuch was 7 years old, she discovered a scroll with strange-looking letters up in her grandmother’s bedroom in their apartment in Krakow, Poland. Her mother explained to the curious child that what she had found was a story called the Book of Esther that is read by the Jews on one of their holidays and that her grandmother had probably obtained it from Jewish friends before the war.
Fifteen years later, while on her deathbed, Karolina’s grandmother revealed her secret to her granddaughter: The megillah in her room had, in fact, belonged to her husband, Karolina’s grandfather, who was a Jew. A survivor of three concentration camps – Auschwitz, Majdanek and Plaszow – where he also underwent medical experiments at the hands of Nazi doctors, he never spoke about his experiences after the war, nor did he ever mention the fact that he was Jewish. His real name was not Karimierz Alcrewski, as he was known by all his friends and family, but Shalom Altstadter.
That was three years ago. This week, Karolina was part of a delegation of 20 Poles known as “the hidden Jews of Poland” visiting Israel on a trip designed to help strengthen their Jewish identity. Like Karolina, many of the delegation members were raised Catholic and have only discovered their Jewish roots in recent years, after the fall of Communism in Poland. The trip was organized and sponsored by Shavei Israel, an organization that reaches out to “lost” Jewish communities around the world – among them the Jews of India and the Jews of the Amazon – to help them reconnect with their Jewish roots.
On Friday, the participants visited Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem in what was undoubtedly one of the more emotional experiences during their 10-day trip that included stops at Masada, the Dead Sea, Hebron and Safed. “Until now, being alive for me was always something that I took for granted,” observed Wantuch, a 25-year-old student who wears a silver menorah pendant around her neck, after the visit. “Now that I know my family history, it is not so obvious anymore.”
When Wantuch revealed the family secret to her parents, she says they were in shock – “especially my father, who had absolutely no idea.” Today, though, she says, “they’re very happy with this information and enjoy coming with me to synagogue.”
Magda, also from Krakow and the unofficial leader of the delegation, is not prepared to reveal her last name or to say what she does in Poland. “It has nothing to do with anti-Semitism,” she insists. “It’s just that it’s not very comfortable being a minority in Poland, no matter what minority.””
Maybe Halper’s family have always lived in Hebron.
Perhaps he’s albino.
He’s really pink too. His roots are probably in Galicia.
I have no idea what his “roots” are. They might be in Africa. Mine are.
careful, seafoid, you seem to have upset weiss. you see he believes that, deep down, we are all the same, except, of course, when he’s scrutinizing (or waxing nostalgic over) the infinitesimal but essential differences between various species of jew and gentile.
Israel’s actions over the past 5 years have ensured that 1948 will return to the table. It isn’t the world’s most intractable problem. It is a problem that can no longer be swept under the carpet.
And the only way to solve it is to agree on what actually happened and start from there.
The Jews didn’t live in Palestine. They lived for the most part in Europe with 20% scattered across the middle East. Palestine wasn’t their country. They didn’t have one country.
European Jew hatred wiped out the Ashkenazi presence in Eastern Europe. A whole society was exterminated .
Afterwards it was easier to shaft the Palestinians than address Europe’s Jewish problem.
But the Jewish problem merely changed form.
and it is unsustainable.
I dont think anyone kicks sand in the face of Murder Inc, AIPAC, Little Odess, or the other Jewish mafias. Extortion is alive and well in American politics.
And In elite universities and multinationals I never saw Jews ostrasized, unless they were believing orthodox, but the statistics evidence a great deal of of ostracism, discrimination towards, exsclusion of, non urban whites (WASPs primarily). But I Wonder where all that sand kicked into the majoritarian goys faces will eventually end up ?
I like things with roots. They stand still while you take the chainsaw or clippers to ‘em.
I’ll suggest my neighbors opposite get in touch with you when they finally realize there’s a tree growing out of their chimney! Three foot tall already!
How can people defend this place? How can they even live with themselves by condoning this 64 year crime?
Jews are not native of Jerusalem ,Arabs are.
white is black and black is white.
The entire land, from عكّا to إيلات was stolen from Palestinians. Every inch of “Israel” was built on blood and tear of the indigenous Arabs.
The world knows this, as so do you.
Boycott “Israel”, Boycott Apartheid.
Maybe there is a 23 foot wall there to prevent to residents of Abu Dis from entering Jerusalem and blowing up pizza restaurants filled with women and children? I don’t know… just a thought.
You’re right. You don’t know.
Not JUST a thought, a really dumb one, and one we have heard a million times before. Thousands of Palestinians get around those barriers every day, yet the ‘women and children’ of Jerusalem can enjoy their pizza. (Israeli men eat no pizza, huh?) The wall is there to turn Palestinian neighborhoods into ghetto’s that are easily controlled.
IL1948 September 7, 2012 at 8:34 pm
“Maybe there is a 23 foot wall there to prevent to residents of Abu Dis from entering Jerusalem and blowing up pizza restaurants filled with women and children? I don’t know… just a thought”
“a thought” Very funny. It’s actually just more illogical Hasbara Red Heifer sh*te. If Israel wanted to protect it’s citizens it could have build the bl**dy wall on Israeli territory. If Israel wanted to protect it’s citizens it would not be ILLEGALLY assisting them to ILLEGALLY settle in “territories occupied”. If Israel had not taken over 50% of the territory slated for an Arab State, it wouldn’t have needed a stupid wall. If Israel had stayed within it’s borders in May 1948, instead of grabbing as much land as possible “outside the State of Israel”
Only really really stupid people think they can steal and not eventually suffer the consequences of their actions.
Why was there no fuss when New York, Sydney, Quebec City, Kigali, Lima etc etc were colonized? This is the way of human civilization.
Why was there no fuss when New York, Sydney, Quebec City, Kigali, Lima etc etc were colonized?
New York – founded 1614; Sydney – founded 1788; Quebec City – founded 1535; Kigali – founded 1907; Lima – founded 1535.
And who says there was no “fuss” (although it sometimes took a while to figure out exactly what the “white devils” were up to)?
This is the way of human civilization.
So are slavery and genocide and tyranny. I take it you’re OK with those things.
>> This is the way of human civilization.
Leave it to hateful and immoral Zio-supremacists to reach for the lowest standards of human behaviour in order to justify and defend the hateful and immoral actions they support or in which they (or their oppressive, colonialist, expansionist and supremacist state) engage.
Notice, too, the hypocrisy: It’s OK for Jews to pursue colonization because it’s “the way of human civilization”, but it’s not OK for anyone (Nazis, Iranians, etc.) to commit a mass slaughter of Jews, even though mass slaughter is also “the way of human civilization”.
What a joke(r).
Mayhem September 8, 2012 at 8:29 am
“This is the way of human civilization”
WAS the way … until the the acquisition of territory by war was outlawed, long before Israel was declared. In fact it’s Customary International Law that Israel obliged itself to uphold when Israel was declared, like the UN Charter and Conventions Israel has since ratified.
BTW Israel is still acquiring territory by war and other nefarious means. Are the US, British, French, Germans, Spanish?
Ziocaine addicts sure know how to post drivel
There continue to be examples of territory taken over by another country that escape universal condemnation, in some cases territory grabs that have not even occurred through war e.g.. West Papua by Indonesia, Tibet invaded by China and Cambodia threatened by Thailand. Pressure is put deliberately on Israel to be an unrealistic exemplar via a hateful policy of singling it out that conveniently overlooks or plays down what happens elsewhere. -The former colonizers mentioned – Britain, France, Spain etc have done their dash; there are new players today.
In fact this post about the Cambodian situation at link to khmerization.blogspot.com.au is very instructive to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
The repeated attempts by Israel’s Arab neighbors to destroy Israel started with non-acceptance of the UN Partition Plan in 1947 and continued in 1967 and 1973. The two intifadas, the avoidance of any kind of peace agreement after multiple peace talks and the flaunting of the Oslo accords that were cemented in 1994, expose the lack of bona fides by the Palestinian representatives, giving them no credibility today when it comes to genuine peace negotiations or interest in forging any kind of joint, mutual agreement.
>> Pressure is put deliberately on Israel to be an unrealistic exemplar …
There’s nothing unrealistic about expecting a “Western-style democracy” and “beacon of light unto the nations” to strive for higher moral, legal and ethical standards of behaviour.*
(*Terrorism, ethnic cleansing and a 60+ years, ON-GOING and offensive (i.e., not defensive) campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder do not constitute higher moral, legal and ethical standards of behaviour.)
Zio-supremacists, however, are content with:
“Israel: We may not be as good as the best but, hey, at least we’re not as bad as the worst!”™
All this wouldn´t be possible without the massive support of the US Administration. But behind the US Administration is the US Power Elite which is through and through scrupelous and absolutely without principles. They pick “allies” and drop them according to the situation and “need”. The link between the US and Israel´s hardcore Zionist ruling clique seems unbreakable, but time will tell. Historically well informed people know how much part of US capitalism contributed to the Nazi´s coming to power as well as to their military successes (and so as well to their crimes). After having used them to get the British rival out of their way and after the Soviet Union was deeply weakened they got rid of them again. For the better understanding of US Power I´d like to turn your attention these book recommendations: link to wipokuli.wordpress.com .
Sincerely
Andreas Schlüter
Berlin, Germany
Thank you, Phil, for doing this work no one else is doing. For seeing a need and filling it. It’s a mitzvah of the highest order.
I’m reading a book now called Letters from Tel Mond Prison about a Jewish terrorist from Brooklyn who helps found a bunch of outposts that later become settlements, and eventually plants a car bomb that maims a Palestinian mayor, destroying both of his legs and leading to their amputation. He spends some time in prison, but his letters show (so far) that he is unrepentent, that Jews settling in the lands they’ve been singing about for centuries is the highest good, and the ends justify the means.
It really emphasizes the need for all humans to stop every now and then and say not, “Does this fit with the stories in my head?” but “Does this feel right, really right, in my heart?” The only way he can answer “Yes” about what he has done is if Palestinian rights are considered not as important as Jewish rights, because of a book written thousands of years ago by one of hundreds of warring tribes and empires that have come and gone in that land. And I’m sorry, but if you think about it objectively, that doesn’t make any flipping sense.
Not to mention, I mean, look around. Anyone who can stamp a kosher lable on what’s happening to the Palestinians has already lost his soul, so what good is the land?
For the record:
Regarding Jerusalem on October 29, 1947, the day the Partition Plan (UNGA Res. 181) was passed:
The total population of West Jerusalem (the New City) and East Jerusalem (the Old City) and their environs was about 200,000 with a slight Arab majority. (Walid Khalidi, “Plan Dalet,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Autumn, 1988, p. 17) The total land area of West Jerusalem was 19,331 dunams (about 4,833 acres) of which 40 per cent was owned by Palestinian Muslims and Christians, 26.12 per cent by Jews and 13.86 per cent by others (e.g., Christian communities.) Government and municipal land made up 2.90 per cent and roads and railways 17.12 per cent. East Jerusalem (the Old City) consisted of 800 dunams (about 200 acres) of which five dunams (just over one acre, i.e., one half of one percent) were Jewish owned and the remaining 795 dunams were owned by Palestinian Muslims and Christians. (“Assessing Palestinian Property in the City,” by Dalia Habash and Terry Rempel, Jerusalem 1948: The Arab Neighbourhoods and their Fate in the War, edited by Salim Tamari, The Institute of Jerusalem Studies, 1999, pp. 184-85)