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MIDEAST: 60,000 Palestinians at Risk in Jerusalem, UN Warns
By David Cronin
JERUSALEM, May 1 (IPS) - A report published Friday by a United Nations agency has warned that the
problems facing the people of Silwan, who are facing eviction from their
homes, are replicated throughout East Jerusalem.
At least 60,000 out of the estimated 225,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem
are at risk of having their homes obliterated because they have been deemed
illegal by Israeli officialdom, the UN's Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) stated.
Some 90 Palestinian buildings were demolished in 2008 alone, uprooting
about 400 people.
All this destruction is being wrought as part of a systematic policy of
ensuring that the entire city of Jerusalem falls into Israeli hands, even though
a raft of UN resolutions have insisted there is no legal validity to building
settlements in East Jerusalem. To date one-third of East Jerusalem has been
expropriated by Israel and almost 200,000 settlers housed.
A makeshift tent of black net walls connected to a tarpaulin roof with nails
and timber has become the nerve centre of a struggle to save 1,500
Palestinians in East Jerusalem in immediate danger of having their homes
destroyed.
Fakhri Abu Diab has lived here in the Silwan district all 47 years of his life
but has been told that he and his family must leave so that a plan to use
Biblical archaeology for political ends can be executed. According to the
municipality of Jerusalem, 88 houses must be demolished to extend the
nearby City of David, a park honouring the king reputed to have conquered
the city three millennia ago.
The Israeli flag that rolls down the facade of a gleaming block of apartments
on the hill overlooking the protest tent signifies the local authority's real
intentions, Diab believes. Whereas the state has spared no expense providing
armed security for the Israeli settlers who have moved into the building, the
Arab community who had been here beforehand lacks a secondary school
and other essential services.
"We know the municipality wants to bring settlers here," said Diab. "They
want the land without us, without Palestinians."
Like many of his neighbours, Diab lives in a house that was built before Israel
seized East Jerusalem in 1967. "We have been here for many generations," he
said. "I have no other place to go."
A short stroll from the American Colony, a family-run hotel that seeks to
recreate the ambience of the early 20th century, the residents of the Sheikh
Jarrah district are preparing for the next wave of evictions. In 1972 two
organisations representing Israeli settlers convinced their country's land
registrar that 28 dunums (28,000 squared metres) here should be registered
in their name.
In the living room of Maher Hanoun's house, political activists from Scotland
and the Czech Republic sip coffee and smoke cigarettes. Hanoun has long
refused to pay the rent demanded by the settler organisations. Last year this
father of five was imprisoned for not complying with the terms of an eviction
order.
"Many times the lawyers for the Israeli settlers have offered us a lot of
money," he said. "It is not a matter of money. Here is the house where I was
born and my kids were born. After they evacuate us, they will build 250
apartments for settlers."
Hanoun, who is embroiled in a protracted court battle, vows to continue
resisting. "We are not fighting with weapons," he said. "We are fighting with
our bodies and our voices."
Like Hanoun, the Al-Kurd family lived in a house built as part of a project
implemented jointly by the Jordanian government and the United Nations
Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
The project was designed to accommodate 28 Palestinian refugee families
who fled from their homes during the violence of 1948, a period which the
state of Israel considers a war of independence but which Palestinians label
the 'nakbah' (catastrophe).
In November last year, Israeli soldiers forced the Al-Kurds out of their home.
Later that month Mohammad Al-Kurd, also known as Abu Kamel, died from
a massive heart attack that locals attribute to shock.
In the 1990s, pressure exerted by Madeleine Albright, then U.S. secretary of
state, led to the freezing of work on an Israeli settlement in Ras Al-Amud,
another part of East Jerusalem. Although the construction work resumed after
she left office, human rights activists cite it as an example of what can be
achieved on the rare instances when Israel is challenged in strident terms by
its chief ally.
So far the current head of U.S. diplomacy, Hillary Clinton, has only delivered
a mild rebuke to the expansion of settlements by describing them as
"unhelpful". In a leaked internal document, the European Commission went
further earlier this year by contending that Israel's activities in and around
Jerusalem "constitute one of the most acute challenges" to the prospect of an
eventual peace accord with the Palestinians.
Jeff Halper from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions said that
this was the second such report that the European Union's executive arm has
drawn up in recent years. Yet when it made similar observations in a
previous report, no follow-up action was taken.
Nevertheless, Halper voiced optimism that the election of Barack Obama as
U.S. President and the international revulsion at Israel's attacks on Gaza in
December and January may prompt both the U.S. and the EU to demand
genuine change in Israeli conduct. "People are beginning to speak out in
ways that they haven't done before," he said. "It is too early to say if this is
the beckoning of a new era or just a passing phenomenon."
(END/2009)
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