1961: The Berlin Wall
2003: The Jerusalem Wall
Carving up Jerusalem, for security, of course
By Akiva Eldar
The Palestinian residents of the eastern neighborhoods of East Jerusalem are now waking up nearly every morning to new land expropriation orders hanging on the electricity poles, giving the residents no more than seven days to appeal the decision.
In the last week, the residents of Tsur Baher, Sheikh Sa'ad, Abu Dis and Voloja have been informed of new expropriations for another 17 kilometers of the "Jerusalem envelope." And the new orders are redrawing the face of Jerusalem.
Nearly in secret, under cover of "security needs," the most dramatic change since the city was unified after the 1967 war is now taking place. In 1967, the Israeli government removed the physical barriers between the east and west of the city, between Jews and Arabs. Now the government is putting up physical barriers between Arab residents and their relatives, Arab pupils and their schools. The fence cuts off East Jerusalem from the West Bank, between 300,000 on one side, their relatives on the other, including a quarter million residents of East Jerusalem and 50,000 West Bankers.
If the Temple Mount is taken as the center of a clock, then the fence goes from 2 P.M. to 7 P.M. and all it takes is a glance at a map to realize that the route has very little to do with security. What does the finger pointing at Rachel's Tomb (and the imprisonment of some 40-60 Palestinian families inside the fenced finger) have to do with the security of Jerusalem? It is difficult not to think that the principle guiding the planners of this new Jerusalem was to strangle the Palestinian neighborhoods with a contiguous corridor of Jewish settlements. The fence fills in the missing links until the Housing Ministry fills them in with subsidized housing.
The new orders pull Mt. Gilo out of the West Bank, annexing it to Jerusalem. From there, the fence draws Israeli territorial contiguity to Gilo and the approaches to Har Homa. Heading north, it cuts in half Tsur Baher and moves hundreds of people, Palestinian residents of Israel (with blue ID cards) to outside the fence. Then it surrounds Sheikh Sa'ad and its neighbor, Arb Suhara, which is inside Jerusalem's municipal jurisdiction. Other orders will divide Abu Dis. Dozens of families, Jerusalemites for generations, will suddenly discover that the view from their windows is no longer the city but an eight-meter-high concrete wall. In other places, the wall will run through courtyards and across streets.
Another fence will head east to the villagers of Azzariyeh and Abu Dis, which are on the eastern threshold of the city, and from there to the Ma'ale Adumim junction. West bankers, whose neighborhoods are inside the "Jerusalem envelope" fence, like Anata, A Ram and Dihiyat al Barid, will be considered illegal the minute they step out their front door onto the main street of their neighborhoods.
It's no accident that East Jerusalem has been relatively quiet since the start of the intifada. In light of the sheer destruction in Bethlehem to the south and Ramallah in the north, the eastern Jerusalemites preferred to look westward, to their neighbors and jobs in the western part of the city.
When Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided to implement his plan for Palestinian enclaves over 45 percent of the West Bank, did he take into account that those who treat East Jerusalem like Ramallah should expect the same attitude back? The difference is that the residents of the capital won't have to use subterfuge to get a car bomb into Israel. Their cars will be deep inside it.
[...]
haaretz.com |
