Ethnic cleansing in al-Quds

Ethnic cleansing in al-Quds
Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:05:00 GMT
By Yousef Fernandez
Since the occupation of al-Quds in 1967, Israel has embarked upon a policy of ethnic cleansing of the city. The policy seeks to expel Palestinians (Muslims and Christian) from al-Quds in order to establish Jewish settlements.

The aim is to expand the Jewish population and to reduce the Muslim and Christian population - in al-Quds and throughout Palestine.

Until the 1948 war, al-Quds was a mixed city where Jewish, Muslim and Christian neighborhoods co-existed. After the war, Zionist terrorist groups drove the inhabitants of the Arab quarters in Western al-Quds to Eastern al-Quds. Western al-Quds was then annexed to the Zionists.

In 1967, Israeli troops took over Eastern al-Quds and annexed it to Israel, even though the move was not recognized by the international community. They immediately tried a repeat of the policies they had carried out in the western part of the city.

They brutally expelled the Arab inhabitants from the Jewish Quarter in the Old City destroying the Mugrabi quarter. The reaction of the international community forced the Zionists to stop expulsions.

From then on, the Zionists have been using more subtle means to carry out their ethnic cleansing of al-Quds. Last year, the al-Quds municipality issued more than 1,000 demolition orders for illegal dwellings, which means that around 100,000 Palestinians may have been made homeless by Israeli administrative policies alone. This problem of housing demolition affects Palestinians throughout the occupied territories.

Israel follows a policy of refusing building permits to the 250,000 Palestinians in Eastern al-Quds. It is believed that three out of every four Palestinian homes in the city have been built without a permit. This policy of refusal of building permits seeks to destroy the homes and lives of Palestinian families.

These policies increase the pressure on Palestinians to move into the West Bank or even abroad. In this way, they lose their residency rights in the city. Palestinians who reside outside the city are not allowed to return to it.

There is growing number of Palestinians - some 4,000 since 2004 - who have been stripped of their right to live in the city. These Palestinians fear leaving their homes because they have been refused al-Quds residency, they fear arrest. Palestinian residents have to pay all municipal taxes, but receive in return only a minimal of municipal services.

In this way, the contact between the Palestinian residents of al-Quds and the inhabitants of the West Bank has been completely severed. The building of the Apartheid Wall, which separates fathers from sons, students from schools, tradesmen from customers, physicians from patients, mosques from the faithful, and even cemeteries from the recently bereaved also serve this purpose.

For example, Zeina Ashrawi was born and grew up in al-Quds. Her mother represented the city in the Palestinian parliament for 10 years. Now, Zeina, who is 27 years old, lives in the United States. When she wanted to visit her parents in the city with her son she was given a 30-day tourist visa, which made her a foreigner in her own land.

" By revoking my Identity Card, they have revoked all the rights I have in my land, Palestine, as well as my son's," she said.

The case of the al-Kurd family has also become a symbol of Palestinian resistance. After the 1967 war, a Zionist organization registered ownership of three hectares of land in Sheikh Jarrah, land on which the al-Kurd's home sits.

"I was married here, I had my five children here and I want to die here," Fawzia al-Kurd told AFP. "The settlers threatened us, they offered us millions of dollars to go live somewhere else, but we are staying here".

She decided that Jewish settlers would not drive her family from their home. However, Israel's High Court has ruled the Al Kurds have to leave.

Hatem Abdel-Kader, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's adviser for occupied al-Quds affairs, said the Israeli authorities plan to build homes in Sheikh Jarrah for Zionist settlers. He said this would contribute to what is becoming a Jewish belt around the eastern side of the Old City, isolating it and its sizeable Muslim quarter from the rest of Eastern al-Quds.

Israel has promoted the construction of 50,000 homes in Eastern al-Quds in the past four decades, homes built exclusively for Jews. They continue to expand existing illegal Zionist settlements in the city.

Recently, an Israeli commission approved the building of 920 new homes in the Har Homa settlement, situated in a neighborhood in Eastern al-Quds, known in Arabic as Jabel Abu Ghneim. The area has more than 10,000 residents.

The Har Homa project is part of a plan to build more than 40,000 new homes over the next decade in both Eastern and Western al-Quds. Israel's housing minister approved the plan in June, a ministry official told AFP.

The building of settlements in Eastern al-Quds and the West Bank is a clear violation of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which prohibit an occupying power from moving its citizens onto occupied land.

Israel's Jewish citizens, and even visiting foreign Jews, do not face expulsion from al-Quds. The country's "Law of Return" entitles all Jews to live anywhere in Israel or in the West Bank settlements controlled by Israel.

The "quiet ethnic cleansing "of al-Quds has outraged people all over the world. International volunteers have started to travel to the city in order to help Palestinians whose homes have been destroyed.

For example, 18 Spanish volunteers are rebuilding an "illegal" structure, a Palestinian home, owned by the Eleyans. The Spanish government has funded this work. This is the first time that a European government has supported the rebuilding of an "illegal" Palestinian home demolished by Israel authorities.

In spite of these policies, a leading Israeli demographer, Sergio DellaPergola, told the Associated Press that Israel is losing the demographic battle. DellaPergola points out that as the city has grown from 265,000 to 750,000 over the past four decades, the percentage of Jews has been steadily shrinking, from 74% to 66%. This is because of the Palestinians' higher birth rate and Jewish migration out of the city. The ratio is expected to drop to 61-39 by 2020. Among school-age children, it will be close to even, he said.

"The Israelis tried to take al-Quds out of the political game by using their power to change the situation and consolidate their rule over the city, but they failed," Meron Benvenisti, a former deputy mayor of al-Quds, told AP.

Despite a willingness expressed by many people all over the world, the international community has done nothing or very little to stop Israeli human rights violations in Palestine.

Israeli policies violate international resolutions and the Geneva Conventions. Due to US protection, the United Nations Security Council has not taken any measures to punish these brutal Zionist policies