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Lebanon
and Syria: The Geopolitics of Change
(Middle
East Report 203, Spring 1997)
Editorial
The construction
of a new Jewish settlement at Jebel Abu Ghneim is but the latest
effort by the Israeli government to assert its sovereignty over
East Jerusalem and preempt the "final status" talks on the city's
future. In addition to completing the inner ring of Jewish settlements
around East Jerusalem, Har Homa will eliminate Jebel Abu Ghneim
as a land reserve for the natural growth of the surrounding Palestinian
communities.
Even with
Western media focused on the bulldozers at Jebel Abu Ghneim, many
journalists have failed to report on other long-standing Israeli
policies in East Jerusalem. Since 1995, the Israeli government has
been revoking the residency rights of Palestinians who lived outside
the city's municipal borders for any period of time. Those who choose
to remain as "illegal immigrants" in their own city lose access
to health care and social insurance, the ability to enroll their
children in school and the right to travel freely inside or outside
Jerusalem. By its own admission, the Israeli government has stripped
more than 1,047 Palestinians of their Jerusalem ID cards since 1996
alone. According to B'Tselem (the Israeli human rights organization),
within the next few months, the interior ministry intends to replace
the ID cards of all Israeli citizens and residents. According to
estimates, some 70 percent of Palestinians in East Jerusalem are
liable to lose their residency status in the process.
Palestinian
Jerusalemites can apply for residency permits for non-Jerusalemite
family members who have been separated by this policy. Since 1995,
however, the Israeli government has all but ceased to approve such
applications for "family reunification." According to Tova Elinson,
spokeswoman for the Israeli interior ministry, "We don't have the
staff" to process the thousands of applications that have accumulated
in the ministry. Barton Gellman (Washington Post, 5-5-97)
reports, however, that, according to Israel's Central Bureau of
Statistics, "during the same period, her ministry evaluated and
approved 236,268 applications for citizenship for Jews and their
family members abroad..."
The construction
of Har Homa and the sprawling tourist and industrial areas approved
for the Jebel Abu Ghneim area are the last in a long succession
of crises, each of which ultimately results in further Palestinian
backtracking and concessions. These Israeli policies seriously compromise--by
design--the "final status" negotiations and the chances for a lasting
and fair agreement on the status of Jerusalem. Robert Fisk (The
Nation, June 9, 1997) argues that "Only the US administration
and the Western media still seem to believe that the 'peace process'--long
dead in the mind of most Arabs--can be put, as the tired State Department
cliche goes, 'back on track.'" It is clear, however, that_given
the power imbalance between the Palestinian and Israeli negotiators
as well as US failure to address Palestinian grievances--this deplorable
state of affairs is the track. The result of Israel's unilateral
imposition of its US-backed "vision of peace" will be a weak, fragmented
Palestinian entity. The Israelis may agree to call this a Palestinian
"state" if only to deflect attention from the fact that these autonomous
Palestinian islands will closely resemble the bantustans of apartheid-era
South Africa.
South African
bantustans, however, were never politically viable, let alone just,
and it is unlikely that the Palestinian version will be any more
sustainable. At this juncture, it is unclear how the Palestinian
people, saddled with the Palestinian Authority's authoritarian rule
and economic depression, will respond. To think, however, that the
current political process will ultimately yield peace and justice
for Israelis and Palestinians alike is to be blind to the devastation
this "peace" has meant to the Palestinians. To ignore this, is to
perpetuate the conflict and condemn the region to continued violent
confrontation.
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