December 2007 – March 2008
In 1967, when Israel occupied previouslyJordanian-controlled eastern Jerusalem, it took control of a city that was 26 percentPalestinian and 74 percent Jewish. Fortyyears later, the Palestinian population in the city has risen to 34 percent, duelargely to a higher birth rate.
Israel has worked hard to maintain demographic and geographic controlover the city it annexed as its capital. Itexpanded the city’s boundaries and is putting massive investment into Jewishsettlements in order to beat back inchingPalestinian growth. In 2005, Jerusalemwas home to 245,000 Arabs and 475,000 Jews, 184,000 of the latter living insettlements considered illegal underinternational law. (More recent numbers put the settlement population at 210,000.)
Since Palestinians and Israelis kicked off talks in Annapolis, Maryland in November, Israel has escalated settlement construction in Jerusalem, according to a recent report by the IrAmim organization. Over 9,500 housing units for Jews have been constructed, 471 of them in the heart of Palestinian population centers. In addition, Israel hasannounced tenders for 1,550 units in four separate settlements within the redrawnJerusalem boundaries.
These moves contradict Israel’s commitments to stop settlement construction under the road map, thebasis for the US-sponsored Annapolis talks. The road map plan for peace was first endorsed in 2003 by the UnitedStates, European Union, Russia andUnited Nations.
Palestinian officials have protested the new building to no avail. PalestinianAuthority efforts to counteract settlement by designating the city an Arab cultural capital have been broken up by Israelipolice, and its organizers detained. One civil society organization canceled a conference to be held in the city after itwas notified that no Palestinian events in Jerusalem were being allowed to proceed.
Meanwhile, Palestinian neighborhoods inJerusalem suffer from systemic neglect. Almost 90 percent of the city’s sewage networks, roads and sidewalks are found in the city’s western side for the use of Jewish residents, says the human rightsgroup B’Tselem.
Since 1967, Israeli officials have planned no new Arab neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem. Construction permits areexpensive and difficult to obtain and unlicensed structures are threatened with demolition. In March alone, city officials demolished four unlicensed Palestinian structures in Jerusalem and its Arab suburbs.
Poverty in Jerusalem is growing atstaggering rates, increasing by 40 percentover six years and touching 33 percent ofthe city’s residents in 2005. Palestinians in the city had a 70 percent poverty rate,found an Israeli study – as did the city’s growing ultra-orthodox community. The increase in poverty is largely due to low workforce participation by Palestinianwomen and ultra-orthodox men.
Approximately one quarter of the city’s residents are ultra-orthodox Jews. Secular Jews often cite their numbers as reason for moving out of Jerusalem. Jerusalem’s mayor and most of its city councilmembers are ultra-orthodox. (Palestinians typically boycott the city government.)The yeshiva where a Palestinian gunmanfrom the Jerusalem neighborhood ofJabal al-Mukabber killed eight ultra-orthodox men injuring 35 others on 6March was a major training ground forthe West Bank settlement movement.
Jerusalem police were ‘caught off guard’days after the shooting when Israelidemonstrators, among them settlerrepresentatives, entered a Palestinianneighborhood and attacked homes andbusinesses. On 14 May, Khayri al-Qam, 51, a father of nine, was stabbed in the back about 5:30 A.M. on his way to work in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood in what was said as a revenge killing forthe yeshiva deaths. Police said this wasthe sixth stabbing of Palestinians sincethe lethal stabbing of an Orthodox Jew in February.
“A cycle of bloodshed has been opened,’’Jerusalem police chief, Yair Yitzhaki, told the New York Times.
While many large Jewish settlements ring the city, newer settlements near the historic old city are set within Palestinianneighborhoods. Settlers in Silwan areactually digging under Arab homes, expanding an archeological site, despitean Israeli court order to stop.
Authorities are also considering amassive new Jerusalem settlement for ultra-orthodox Jews just meters from thePalestinian town of Ramallah. Former deputy mayor Meron Benvenisti calledthe proposal “complete insanity” for itspotential to create friction.
In the absence of intensive efforts to reach a political compromise over thecity and its related issues of settlementsand borders, Jerusalem is increasinglytense. Worrying trends indicate a shift to violence between city residentsalong ethnic and religious lines, asIsraeli authorities push hard to gain ademographic advantage also along ethnicand religious lines.