More impracticality?
A TEST OF THE ROAD MAP
Jeff Halper, Coordinator
The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD)
icahd.org
Israel's powerful lobby in Washington, in preparation for
his meeting with President Bush tomorrow (Tuesday).
According to news reports, the American Administration
is looking to Sharon to "give a boost" to the Road Map by
offering some "humanitarian gesture." Freeing 100 more
Palestinian prisoners, perhaps, or dismantling a couple
of its hundreds of checkpoints, or altering slightly the
route of the Separation Wall. What it is not looking for,
apparently, is Israeli compliance with one of the most
crucial elements of Phase I of the Road Map:
ending the wholesale demolition of Palestinian homes.
The language of the Road Map is clear --
and deliberately broad so as to avoid Israeli attempts
to trip it up on technicalities:
"The Government of Israel takes no actions undermining
trust, including…demolition of Palestinian homes…as a
punitive measure or to facilitate Israeli construction…."
In the past few weeks the Israeli government has issued
dozens of demolition orders against Palestinian homes
in East Jerusalem. We have received word that
demolition activities will commence already this
Wednesday, hours after Sharon's meeting with Bush.
Israel argues that "East Jerusalem" is not covered by the
Road Map since it has been formally annexed to Israel.
The Quartet seems to be letting Israel get away with this
ploy, even though all the American and most European
governments have expressed their (mild) disagreement.
Nor do the threatened demolitions come under the Road
Map's prohibition of house demolitions, in Israel's
opinion, because they are being carried out for "proper"
planning purposes (the construction of the Separation
Wall, for instance, or the building of Israeli-only "by-pass
highways" through densely settled Palestinian
neighborhoods), not as "punitive measures."
These provocative moves by Israel, which engender
tremendous suffering on the part of the Palestinian
families affected (thus violating yet another provision
of the Road Map in which Israel takes measures to
improve the humanitarian situation), are clearly "punitive
measures." Take the example of just one family, that of
Abed Ajaj in the Jabal Mukaber neighborhood, a widower
with 11 children who is employed as a driver by the
German Consulate. His house is one of six in Jabal
Mukaber scheduled for demolition on Wednesday.
It lies tucked in the middle of a mountain, far from any
proposed road or wall, yet just under a large new Jewish
settlement that is under construction. Abed's modest
home is built on his own land, but he has been unable to
secure a building permit because his land, like most of
Jabal Mukaber itself and more than half of "East Jerusalem",
is zoned as "open green space" that is, land
that Palestinians are forbidden to build upon.
The new settlement is also located on "open green
space," of course, but the Municipality readily changed
its zoning to "residence." Thus Abed's house is slated for
demolition - all according to "proper administrative and
legal procedures," of course, while the houses of
hundreds of Jewish residents just a few meters away are
going up post haste. If that isn't "punitive," we need
another definition of the word.
In fact, all of the demolitions of Palestinian homes in
"East Jerusalem" - more than 300 in the past decade,
with hundreds of demolition orders outstanding -
are punitive, since the entire policy is intended to confine
Palestinians to small ghettos within "Israeli" Jerusalem.
Palestinians make up more than a third of the city's
population, yet have access to only 6% of its land for all
their residential, communal and commercial needs.
Amir Cheshin, the long-serving Advisor on Arab Affairs
for the Jerusalem municipality under Kollek and, for a
time, Olmert, writes in his revealing book
"Separate and Unequal:
The Inside Story of Israeli Rule in East Jerusalem"
(Harvard University Press, 1999, pp. 10, 31-32, 37):
Israel turned urban planning into a tool of the
government, to be used to help prevent the expansion
of the city's non-Jewish population. It was a ruthless
policy, if only for the fact that the needs (to say nothing
of the rights) of Palestinian residents were ignored.
Israel saw the adoption of strict zoning plans as a way
of limiting the number of new homes built in Arab
neighborhoods, and thereby ensuring that the Arab
percentage of the city's population - 28.8% in 1967 -
did not grow beyond this level. Allowing "too many" new
homes in Arab neighborhoods would mean "too many"
Arab residents in the city. The idea was to move as
many Jews as possible into east Jerusalem, and move
as many Arabs as possible out of the city entirely.
Israeli housing policy in east Jerusalem was all about this
numbers game.
Planners with the city engineer's office, when drawing the
zoning boundaries for the Arab neighborhoods, limited
them to already built-up areas. Adjoining open areas
were either zoned "green," to signify they were off-limits
to development, or left unzoned until they were needed
for the construction of Jewish housing projects. The 1970
Kollek plan contains the principles upon which Israeli
housing policy is based to this day - expropriation of
Arab-owned land, development of large Jewish
neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, and limitations on
development in Arab neighborhoods."
All this begs the broader question of the illegality of any
Israeli construction or demolition in "East Jerusalem,"
which is a gross violation of the Fourth Geneva
Convention. But our immediate and urgent concern is to
stop the impending wave of demolitions, with or without
the Road Map.
WE URGE YOU TO CONTACT
YOUR POLITICAL REPRESENTATIVES,
YOUR RELIGIOUS LEADERS,
THE MEDIA.
MOBILIZE YOUR CIVIC ORGANIZATIONS
TO MAKE PROTESTS TO THE
ISRAELI EMBASSY IN YOUR COUNTRY.
MAKE NOISE, DEMAND AN END TO DEMOLITIONS.
MAKE YOURSELVES HEARD.
LET'S MAKE OUR LEADERS KEEP THE ROAD MAP
PROCESS HONEST - OR ADMIT ITS FAILURE.
Abed Ajaj and hundreds of Palestinian families
are depending on you. |
