"In 1999, 1,100 religious leaders in the US called on the US government to support a peace which "recognizes the unique religious significance of Jerusalem and gives equal national status to Israelis and Palestinians in a shared, undivided Jerusalem." In 2000, 300 American Rabbis, in a statement circulated by the Jewish Peace Lobby, called for a shared Jerusalem."
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Jerusalem
The information below, and all quotes, unless noted, are largely based on "Jerusalem: Injustice in the Holy City," a report issued in Spring 2000 by B'Tselem - The Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.
Jerusalem and Human Rights
Before the 1967 War, Israeli West Jerusalem covered 38 square kilometers. Arab East Jerusalem, ruled by Jordan and including the Old City, consisted of only 6 square kilometers. Following the War, Israel annexed 70 square kilometers, mostly land from West Bank villages like Beit Hanna and Um Tuba, villages most Israelis have never heard of.
In many cases villages and neighborhoods were divided in two. Agricultural lands belonging to villages were in some cases annexed to Jerusalem, while the villages remained in the West Bank.
Most Palestinians in Israeli-occupied Jerusalem chose to take residency permits, rejecting Israeli citizenship. While East Jerusalem Palestinians enjoy certain benefits such as health insurance, "in practice they are subject to discriminatory laws and policies intended to curb the growth of the Palestinian population in East Jerusalem."
Jerusalem's population in mid-2000 is 646,000, of which about 31 percent is Arab. This percentage is likely to climb higher given the greater birth rate among Arabs. Since Israel seeks to keep the Arab percentage below 30 percent, some Israeli leaders are considering a trade-off whereby Israel annexes Jewish settlements in and near East Jerusalem and allows the Palestinian Authority to take over Arab sectors of much or all of East Jerusalem.
In the Old City, an area of one square kilometer, Jews make up only nine percent of the population of 32,000.
Of the 70 square kilometers annexed to Jerusalem after 1967, 24.5 were expropriated, mostly from individual Arab landowners. This expropriated land has been used "exclusively for the benefit of the Jewish population."
Israel allows Palestinians to build on only 7 percent of East Jerusalem, land which is already mostly filled with Palestinian neighborhoods. In East Jerusalem, on expropriated Arab land, there are some 43,000 Jewish homes and not a single Arab home. By contrast, in all of East Jerusalem there are 28,000 Palestinian homes. Despite a housing shortage among Palestinians exceeding 20,000 units, Palestinians, who comprise 30 percent of the population of municipal Jerusalem, were allowed to build only about 7.5 percent of the homes built during the years 1990-1997.
Much of the land adjoining Palestinian neighborhoods has been put off limits for Palestinians. Palestinians are denied permits to build on this land - even on land they own, including land adjacent to an existing home. It is also difficult even to obtain permits to expand existing homes. While both Palestinians and Israelis build illegally, Palestinians are responsible for less than 20 percent of illegal construction, but nearly two-thirds of demolitions are of Palestinian homes. During 1992-2000, Israel demolished 198 Palestinian homes.
Amnesty International, in its 1999 Report, "Demolition and Dispossession: The Destruction of Palestinian Homes," notes that while the number of homes demolished in any year is "large," it is small compared with the number "which are at any time issued with a demolition order and under threat of demolition." Amnesty believes that perhaps 12,000 homes in East Jerusalem, housing over a third of the Arab population, live under demolition orders.
Amnesty concludes that Israel has a policy of "land confiscation from private Palestinian ownership which is then used exclusively for Israeli development."
Since 1995, Palestinians who have lived for a time outside of Jerusalem, for whatever reasons, have been liable to lose their residency status. Between 1995 and 1999, over 3,000 Palestinians lost their right to live in Jerusalem, in what B'Tselem calls a "quiet deportation." The Barak government has suspended this practice at this time. Meanwhile, the National Insurance Institute has subjected all Palestinian residents to arbitrary investigations which have resulted in withdrawal of health insurance from Palestinians, including thousands of children.
Methods used to encourage Palestinians to leave Jerusalem (the "quiet deportation") have included: withdrawal of residency permits and health insurance; expropriation of land; demolition of housing; denying family reunification; creating a severe housing shortage; and neglecting basic services.
Although 30 percent of the population, Palestinians benefit from only 9 percent of the 1999 Jerusalem Development Budget. In Jerusalem, Jews have 36 swimming pools, Palestinians none. Jews have 26 libraries; Palestinians have two. "Entire neighborhoods are not hooked up to a sewer system, without paved roads or sidewalks."
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have difficulty obtaining permits to enter Jerusalem, a city which is the center of religious, cultural, and economic life for West Bank Palestinians. So in the year 2000, millions of Christians from around the world are able to visit Jerusalem, but Palestinian Christians living a few kilometers away find it difficult, if not impossible, to visit their holy city.
Veteran Israeli journalist Danny Rubinstein writes that for the past decade "most Muslims from the West Bank and Gaza have not been permitted [by Israel] to pray at Al-Aqsa" mosque in Jerusalem. "There has not been a single case in which a Muslim from Gaza requesting a permit to pray in Jerusalem has received one." (Ha'aretz, October 2, 2000.)
Jerusalem and International Law
Under the UN partition Plan of 1947, Jerusalem was to be internationalized. During the 1948 War, Israel and Jordan seized, respectively, West and East Jerusalem. The Old City was held by Jordan. Both nations were in violation of the Partition Plan and international law, but both ignored the international community.
The 200,000 or so Jewish settlers who have moved into East Jerusalem since Israel occupied the area in 1967 are in violation of international law. The Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 49), states that "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transport parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." Both Israel and the United States have signed the Geneva Convention.
The UN Security Council, in numerous resolutions, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, have reaffirmed the applicability of the Geneva Convention to the lands, including Arab East Jerusalem, occupied by Israel in 1967.
The Security Council has repeatedly deplored and declared null and void Israeli actions in East Jerusalem which have changed the demographic composition and physical character of East Jerusalem.
The European Union, in October 1996, stated: "East Jerusalem is subject to the principles set out in UN Security Council Resolution 242, notably the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force."
On November 3, 1996, British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind stated: "All the Jewish settlements - the Jewish settlements in the occupied territories - are illegal and, therefore, should not continue."
The Vatican remains opposed to Israeli actions. In 1998, Vatican Foreign Minister Jean-Louis Tauran repeated this position: "East Jerusalem is illegally occupied."
Only Costa Rica and El Salvador have moved their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. That means, almost no government has recognized Israeli control over even West Jerusalem - seized in 1948.
Israeli policy in occupied East Jerusalem violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (signed by Israel and the US), namely:
Denial of equal protection under the law (Article 7)
Arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile (Article 9)
Denial of the right to return to one's country (Article 13)
Arbitrary expropriation of personal property (Article 17)
Interference with religious worship and observance (Article 18)
In 1999, 1,100 religious leaders in the US called on the US government to support a peace which "recognizes the unique religious significance of Jerusalem and gives equal national status to Israelis and Palestinians in a shared, undivided Jerusalem." In 2000, 300 American Rabbis, in a statement circulated by the Jewish Peace Lobby, called for a shared Jerusalem.
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