Israel Grabbing Half Of Remaining Palestinian Jerusalem
"By all accounts, the Israeli ministry of interior is using land expropriations,
identity-card seizure, exorbitant taxes and difficult-to-obtain building,
family-reunion and residency permits to slowly force Palestinian residents
out of the city.... The total land to be expropriated could add up to
half of all East Jerusalem property."
MIDDLEEAST.ORG - MER - Washington - 22 January: How long these major political and military Israeli victories for which Ariel Sharon does indeed deserve the major credit will hold remains to be seen. What will be the future ramifications of what has happened in recent years and is now being consolidated at the moment by Israel in coordination with the U.S. remains to be seen. Whether and for how long the back of Intifada II has been broken, and whether or not the "Palestinian Authority" working at the direction of Israel and the U.S. will remain in power and/or be able to prevail in a shooting civil war, all that too remains to be seen.
But for the moment Ariel Sharon the General and the Prime Minister has achieved tremendous political and military gains beyond what even he probably expected; and the Zionist movement has never had a firmer grip on the power of the world's only current superpower as well as much of the international mass media.
Even as the U.S. and Israeli armed and financed PA forces move into Gaza to force an end to what has been known as Intifada II -- this after the Israeli building of the Apartheid Wall, great expansion of West Bank and Jerusalem settlements, and assassination of top Palestinian leaders including Yassin of Hamas and Arafat of the PLO and large numbers of sub-leadership -- the Israelis are making a major move to further consolidate their hold over all of crucial and historic Jerusalem. The outline of what they are doing was ironically published in Al-Jazeera just as the American President was proclaiming in his Inaugural his professed dedication to 'freedom', 'democracy', and an 'end to tyranny' all guided by his Lord Jesus Christ.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Israel plans big Jerusalem land grab
By Laila El-Haddad in Gaza
Al-Jazeera - 20 January 2005:
Palestinians see East Jerusalem as capital of their future state
The Sharon government intends to strip thousands of West Bank Palestiniansof their property in occupied East Jerusalem, according to the Israeli press quoting newly released government documents.
At stake are thousands of donoms of land belonging to Palestinians who live in the West Bank and are now unable to access their land due to Israel's separation barrier.
The decision, reached by the Ministerial Committee for Jerusalem Affairs in June of 2004, and approved by Prime Minister Sharon and his attorney-general a month later, has not been publicised until now.
By some estimates, the total land to be expropriated could add up to half of all East Jerusalem property.
The move is based on the Israeli Absentee Property Law of 1950, which holds that assets of Jerusalemite Palestinians who were in the West Bank and Gaza Strip at the time of the 1948 War would be expropriated by the state of Israel, without the absentee being eligible for compensation.
Political considerations
Palestinian claims to Jerusalem
are being steadily eliminated
The law, which applied to millions of Palestinian refugees who were unable to return to their homes after the 1948 war, has not been applied to West Bank residents with property in East Jerusalem until now.
The decision is the latest in a series of measures by the Israeli government apparently aimed at eliminating Palestinian claims to Jerusalem and ultimately predetermining the future status of the city.
According to the Israeli Human Rights group B'tselem, the development of East Jerusalem, since its illegal annexation in 1967, has been based on political considerations designed to strengthen Israeli control over the city, by creating a decisive majority of Jews.
Pressure tactics
By all accounts, the Israeli ministry of interior is using land expropriations, identity-card seizure, exorbitant taxes and difficult-to-obtain building, family-reunion and residency permits to slowly force Palestinian residents out of the city.
A law passed by former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government in the late 1990s, declared that any Palestinian who has not lived in the city for seven continuous years loses his residency rights, for example.
The Netanyahu law, whose time limit has since been changed to three years, does not apply to Israeli Jews.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
