The United Nations Works and Relief Agency, UNWRA, is celebrating 60 years of working in Israel and Palestine. Its slogan, proudly proclaimed on its website, is Peace Starts Here.
“Why doesn’t the UNWRA put flags on our houses? They built them for us in 1956 on land given by the Jordanian government. We gave up our right to the benefits of refugee status in return for shelter.”
The question is asked by Mohammed Sabbagh, whose family is the next in line for eviction in Sheikh Jarrah, a middle class Palestinian suburb of prime real estate in central East Jerusalem, to the north of the Old City. UNWRA says they can only put flags on schools or official buildings not private houses – even if they built them.
These are desperate times. Palestinian East Jerusalem is disappearing. It seemed to me that there is a strong case for concrete UN action. For thanks to the pressure of Israeli settler organisations like Ateret Cohamin, well established, strategically located Palestinian property in East Jerusalem is being targeted, seized and redeveloped.
The international community, in the shape of consulates whose offices actually overlook the evicted families in Sheikh Jarrah expresses concern, disappointment, even displeasure. But it does not actually do anything. If something is not done, however, to stop this process the international community will soon be over-looking newly built Israeli settlements while it bemoan the demise of Palestinian East Jerusalem, as the ‘transfer’ of Palestinians to the West Bank or abroad is completed. The cumulative result of the asymmetric pressures put on Palestinians, whatever their intentions, is pushing Jerusalem into single-faith mono-culture. Would these processes be called "ethnic cleansing" if they were reported in Bosnia?
If the Sabbagh family is evicted, they will follow the Al Kurd family who suffered a 5 am eviction in December 2008. Then came the Al Ghawi and Hannoun families, totalling 53 people including 20 children, on August 2, 2009. And after them will come the other 28 families with eviction orders from Jerusalem City Council because Ateret Cohamin, funded by the US billionaire Irving Moskovitz, claim that the land in Sheikh Jarrah at one time had belonged to Jews.
“Alright,” say the Al Ghawis, Hannouns and Sabbaghs, “take these houses, but give us back our original homes in Jaffa, Haifa and West Jerusalem.” But the Israeli courts that approve settler claims on land allegedly owned long ago by Jews do not uphold the claims for restitution by Palestinians.
Settlers on the top of the house in Sheikh Jarrah from which the El Ghawi family was evicted on August 2
Other claims on land titles are being made on many other parts of the Jerusalem Holy Basin. The largest new settlement complexes are at Ras El Amoud on the Mount of Olives, already under construction; the prospective work at the Shepherds Hotel; and the adjacent land of Karm el Mufti in Sheikh Jarrah. The Muslim and Christian quarters of the Old City are increasingly dotted with the security turrets, armed guards and Star of David flags denoting a settler enclave.On the other side of the Old City, in the working class Palestinian area of Silwan, the problem facing Palestinian families is demolition rather than eviction. 88 houses in Al Bustan, the valley floor area of Silwan, face demolition to make way for the ‘Gardens of the City of David’, part of the extension of the archaeological site that aims to prove that King David once lived there.
Before demolition
After demolition
“Don’t make 1,500 people homeless for a theme park”, reads the banner in the Wadi Hilweh community centre. But the word on the street is that the Jerusalem City Council is only waiting to decide whether the houses will be demolished all in one go, like the plaza in front of the Western Wall was cleared in 1967, or if demolition will be done more stealthily one by one.Other parts of the Holy Basin have already suffered demolitions, ranging from apartment blocks to small extensions on existing houses. Unlike Jewish settlers, Palestinian families are not allowed ‘natural growth’. When they apply for permission to extend existing houses this is rarely granted. In 2009, only 140 building permits were issued when there is a shortfall of thousands of housing units.
So Palestinians build illegally, and receive demolitions orders. Families can spend fortunes going to court, hiring lawyers, paying fines but the demolition orders may still stand and can be enforced any time, usually early in the morning without warning. 1,800 demolition orders are currently outstanding in East Jerusalem as a whole.
Jerusalem City Council is made up primarily of councillors from the religious parties and Likud. It has a constant eye on demographics. The Jerusalem Master Plan for 2020, published in 2004, aims to restrict the Palestinian population to 30% of the overall population of Jerusalem even though their high birth rate would make 40% closer to the number expected. Mayor Nir Barkat confirmed this when he took office last year. 300,000 Jewish Israelis currently live in West Jerusalem. East Jerusalem now has approximately as many Jewish Israeli residents (250,000) as Palestinians.
While Jewish settlements are expanding in East Jerusalem, Palestinians are being squeezed into smaller and smaller areas, and forced further and further away from the centre. Overcrowding means more than an impoverished quality of life. Those who are middle-class or have the resources to flee elsewhere, do so. The local economy starts to cave in. But Palestinians have to suffer in silence. They are residents of Jerusalem but not citizens of Israel. They live in Jerusalem on sufferance not by right; their precious Jerusalem ID can be revoked at any time even though their families may have lived there for many generations.
Why is the West just standing by watching? This is not just any city, it is Jerusalem, holy to the world’s three Abrahamic faiths, the three great monotheistic traditions. There has been a sizable, thriving, historic Christian community there since Roman times. The majority of them are indeed Palestinians. Isn’t this part of the West’s heritage? Do we mind if the diversity of this city that was a marketplace of pilgrims of many faiths disappears? Do we mind if Jerusalem becomes in effect totally Jewish with a few symbolic Muslims and Christians on show – rather than a place with a vibrant centre where they live and work?
When I last saw him, Mr El Ghawi was living in a tent opposite his former home. Speaking in Arabic and Hebrew at a recent demonstration he still calls for unity in diversity, with Jews, Christians and Muslims as neighbours sharing the city that is holy to all of them. What is taking place in his city is not ‘settlement’, it is displacement. Slowly, the Muslim Dome of the Rock is being surrounded by Israeli colonisers who are pushing out its Palestinian population.
It is not just that what is happening is clearly wrong in humanitarian terms. Nor that the internationally community as a whole should not be spineless in permitting what is happening. The point that needs to be made is that Jerusalem belongs to all the many strands of humanity that trace allegiance to its holy places. Our own diversity, pluralism and tolerance is threatened by the purification that continues in the historic city of faiths of the Middle East.
