POLICE AND SETTLERS RESORTING TO DESPERATE MEASURES IN OCCUPIED EAST JERUSALEM

At approximately 11.30pm on the 18th April, a British ISM activist, Robin Brown, was arrested in Sheikh Jarrah having been falsely accused by Israeli settlers of attacking them with tear gas. Those present in the hours leading up to his arrest insist this cannot possibly be true. Brown was released from police custody at 3am on the 19th – recognition from the police that there was absolutely no evidence to support the settlers’ accusations.

Earlier in the evening, settlers had attempted to destroy a mural that was recently painted in the front garden of the Al Kurd home, half of which is occupied by settlers. Running past the wall, they threw cupfuls of white paint at the mural before fleeing down the street. Despite their later claims to police, there was no confrontation in the street between them and the Palestinian residents of the neighbourhood, or the international activists who were also present.

The previous night, Israeli settlers attacked local residents in the street, pepper spraying two of them. As the police say that, when called to the area on the night of the 18th, a settler did show signs of having been gassed, it seems possible that this was inflicted upon him by a fellow settler, still in possession of the pepper spray used the night before. The police who arrested and interrogated Brown found no traces of any kind of gas or spray on his hands, clothes or bag, proof that, if any gas was used, it did not come from him.

Brown says, “It is clear that settlers have decided to try to find ways to get rid of the international activists who sit in solidarity with Sheikh Jarrah residents, and who document the violence and harassment that is inflicted upon them by the settlers. Settlers frequently make up lies in an attempt to get Palestinians arrested. It’s no surprise that they’re now doing the same to internationals”.
http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/police-and-settlers-resorting-to-desperate-measures-in-occupied-east-jerusalem/

Thousands of Jerusalemites may lose residency

RAMALLAH: The Director of Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights, Ziad Hammouri, on Friday said that around 165,000 Jerusalemites are living east of the wall that separates Jerusalem from the West Bank.

Hammouri told Arab News that the Jerusalemites might "lose their right to reside in the city." According to Hammouri, 70,000 Jerusalemites living in the neighborhoods of Al-Bareed, Kafr Aqab and Samiramees are facing the same threat of transfer."

He explained that 30,000 Jerusalemites lost their residency since Israeli started implementing its policy of expulsion and ethnic cleansing in the city in early '90s. He said the Israeli Ministry of Interior refuses to reveal details of those who lost their residency in the last three years. Hammouri said that the intensive demolition of Palestinian homes in Jerusalem is aimed at decreasing the number of Palestinians to less than 80,000, warning that the Zionist schemes in the holy city are almost completed.

He said Israel is putting final touches on its Judaization schemes in Jerusalem by confiscating the remaining Palestinian property, adding that the next scheme will be aimed at changing the landmarks of the city.

He pointed out that all measures to judaize Jerusalem was taken in the aftermath of the Oslo accord which stipulated that the Palestinian Authority would be prohibited from doing any kind of activity in Jerusalem, but these actions escalated after the Annapolis conference (held in November 2007).

In January, Yakir Segev, the right-wing Israeli official who holds the East Jerusalem portfolio in the Jerusalem municipality, declared that the Palestinian neighborhoods east of the separation wall were "no longer part of the city."

The residents in these neighborhoods are currently living under near anarchy due to the fact that Israeli authorities, municipality, police, service authorities almost never enter this area and the Palestinian Authority also refrain from entering it as Oslo guidelines forbid them to operate within Jerusalem.

"The State of Israel has given up," Segev said, adding: "(The neighborhoods) are outside the jurisdiction of the state, and certainly the municipality. For all practical purposes, they are (West Bank city of) Ramallah. Outside the half delusional right wing camp, I don't know anyone who wants to enforce Israeli sovereignty over this area," he continued.

"In order to address the problems of East Jerusalem, we must decide on the city's political future," he added. "It is difficult to convince decision makers and the treasury to enlist in helping East Jerusalem when its political future is uncertain." Israel usurped East Jerusalem in the June 1967 War and has since built settlements there that are home to more than 200,000 Israelis.

Control over the city has been seen as the most sensitive and thorniest issue of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinians hope to make East Jerusalem the capital of their future state but the Israel says the city is its eternal capital.
http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article41172.ece

The Way to a New Intifada

Recently East Jerusalem and most of the West Bank territories witnessed violent clashes between the Israeli police and Palestinian protestors. The clashes MIDEAST-PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-RELIGION-CLASHES started after an Israeli declaration of considering the Ibrahemi Mosque in Hebron and Belal’s mosque in Bethlehem part of the Jewish religious heritage that will be developed and protected by the Israeli government.

The clashes spread out after the latest incidents inside the Aqsa mosque last Friday. The Israeli police claimed that young Palestinians threw stones from the Aqsa mosque at the Western Wall which is considered a holy praying place for Jews and by Muslims a part of the Aqsa mosque. In the Aqsa clashes more than sixty Palestinians and twenty Israeli policemen were injured.

The Israeli internal security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch claimed that Hamas stood behind the latest clashes. The Palestinian authority in Ramallah stated that Israel is trying to make Mitchell’s visit a failure by continuing its attacks against the Palestinians and their holy places and territories. Hamas stated that any attack on the Aqsa mosque will bring dangerous results and reactions.

The Islamic countries conference warned Israel from its continuos policy that is affecting on the right of freedom of faith and prayers. The Islamic countries states that any kind of attack on the Aqsa mosque could result in a war in the whole region.
On Saturday, more than three thousand Israeli and Arab protestors demonstrated at the Shekh Jarah in East Jerusalem against the Israeli settlements at the area. The demonstration was forbidden by the Israeli police but the Israeli supreme court allowed it. Many Israelis considered this demonstration as a sign of the return of the Israeli left which is also standing against the Israeli wrong occupation and policies.

According to Palestinian sources inside the Palestinian authority, Israel’s head of public security service Deskin warned the Palestinians from the ongoing clashes and a possible lose of control in the Palestinian territories. According to the source, Israel will reconsider its cooperation with the Palestinian security forces and may enter the West Bank and launch a wide campaign of arrests if the clashes continue. Deskin also asked from the Palestinian authority to abandon its plan of preventing the selling of Israeli products in the West Bank and asked to prevent its officials from participating in demonstrations against Israel.

The Israeli intelligence service failed to predict the latest clashes in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Once East Jerusalem become the center of any clashes, there is a possibility that it may spread out to other territories very quickly. Israel’s analysis of the reasons which stand behind such reactions seems to be inconvenient.

Israel preferred to blame Hamas for the recent clashes but forgot about looking at Jerusalem for a while and analyzing the situation of its Palestinian inhabitants. East Jerusalem is inhabited by Palestinian residents which hold permanent resident identification cards but vote for the Palestinian elections. They believe that they are a part of the West Bank, Gaza, and future Palestinian state. According to Oslo Agreement Israel does not recognize the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem as a part of the Israeli population and agreed on finding a final solution for them after reaching the final negotiations.

The International community and law considers East Jerusalem and the West Bank occupied lands. Israel is supposed to withdraw from these territories through a peace agreement with the inhabitants of the land. The Aqsa mosque is the third most important and holy sight for hundreds of millions of Muslims. Beside its importance in the eyes of the Muslims around the world, the Palestinians consider the mosque a red line and are ready to sacrifice for it as a part of their belief.

The Israeli government forgot about all these reasons, the settlements buildings in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the daily harassment of the Palestinian residents of the city and the West Bank, and the apartheid policy. One more important reason which Israel forgot about and seems to be the reason why its security service failed in predicting the recent clashes is the new Palestinian youth generations.
These new young generations grew up while watching the Israeli occupation policy that affected at least one of their family members or neighbors. Once they grow up they react by demonstrating and refusing the occupation which turned their lives into a difficult and sour experience.

The only result which the Israeli occupation is bringing for Israel is more and more of Palestinian generations that will replace those who were before them. This one result proves the failure of the security theory which Israel believes in. Instead the Israeli current government should reconsider its refusal of any kind of compromise in order to reach peace. The Israeli people should think twice in the next elections. It may look fine now but the current Israeli policy will bring disastrous effects and reactions in the future.
http://www.middleastpost.com/1672/intifada/#more-1672

ISRAELI SETTLER JEWS GET GO AHEAD TO BREAK THE LAW

Jerusalem’s mayor threatened last week to demolish 200 homes in Palestinian neighbourhoods of the city in an act even he conceded would probably bring long-simmering tensions over housing in East Jerusalem to a boil.His uncompromising stance is the latest stage in a protracted legal battle over a single building towering above the jumble of modest homes of Silwan, a deprived and overcrowded Palestinian community lying just outside the Old City walls, in the shadow of the silver-topped al Aqsa mosque.


Beit Yehonatan, or Jonathan’s House, is distinctive not only for its height – at seven storeys, it is at least three floors taller than its neighbours – but also for the Israeli flag draped from the roof to the fourth floor.The settlement outpost has been home to eight Jewish families since 2004, when it was built without a licence by an extremist settler organisation known as Ateret Cohanim.

Beit Yehonatan is one of dozens of settler-occupied homes springing up in Palestinian areas of East Jerusalem, most of them takeovers of Palestinian homes.

Critics say the intent of these “outposts”, together with the large settlements of East Jerusalem built by the state and home to nearly 200,000 Jews, is to foil any peace agreement that might one day offer the Palestinians a meaningful state with Jerusalem as its capital.


But exceptionally for the settlers, who are used to a mix of overt and covert assistance from officials, the inhabitants of Beit Yehonatan are at risk of being evicted from their home, two years after an “urgent” enforcement order was issued by the Israeli Supreme Court.


Last week Nir Barkat, Jerusalem’s mayor, finally agreed “under protest” to seal Beit Yehonatan amid mounting pressure from an array of legal officials. Mr Barkat had been fighting strenuously against implementing the court order, aided by senior members of the parliament, the police, and even Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who opposed his own attorney general’s advice by declaring Beit Yehonatan’s future “a purely municipal matter”.


But the mayor has not simply capitulated. He warned that Beit Yehonatan would be evacuated only on condition that more than 200 demolition orders on Palestinian homes, most of them in Silwan, were carried out at the same time. He argued that he must avoid any impression that the law was being enforced in a “discriminatory” manner against Jews.

Jeff Halper, head of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, said Mr Barkat’s idea of fairness was “ridiculous”.


“In the past 15 years there have been more than a thousand Palestinian homes demolished in East Jerusalem versus absolutely no settler homes,” he said. “In fact, no settlers have ever lost their home in East Jerusalem.”

In making his announcement, Mr Barkat admitted that the 200 demolitions would trigger “a strong possibility for conflict”. Palestinians in East Jerusalem are already seething over decades of planning restrictions that have forced many of them to build or extend homes illegally because it is all but impossible to get permits from the Israeli authorities.


Mr Halper said the municipality had classified 22,000 Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem as illegal, even as it also assessed a shortage of 25,000 homes for the city’s 250,000-strong Palestinian population.

The homes targeted for demolition include Palestinian houses around Beit Yehonatan that violate planning restrictions that allow families to build only two floors; despite the restriction, many houses have four storeys and owners pay fines.
In addition, the city council wants to demolish 88 homes in a small area called Bustan that the municipality claims is in danger of flooding.

Zeinab Jaber lives next to Beit Yehonatan in the home she was born in 61 years ago. The building was declared illegal 20 years ago, after it was extended to four storeys to accommodate her growing family. Today she and her six grown-up sons pay monthly fines of more than $1,000 (Dh 3,672) in the hope of warding off destruction.
Her son Amjad, 32, married with two young sons, said he did not dare miss a payment. “It’s simple: if you don’t pay, you’ll end up in prison.”

“What is there for the settlers here?” Mrs Jaber asked. “They are only here because they want to take this place from us. They won’t be happy till we leave.”

On the opposite slope across the valley from Beit Yehonatan, Mohammed Jalajil, 48, said he did not doubt that the municipality would demolish the 200 homes. He, his wife and five children have been crammed into a room in a relative’s apartment since their own house was demolished seven years ago.
Mr Jalajil, 48, said: “It was only months after they took our house from us that I saw the settlers building theirs nearby. My lawyer tells me that, even though my house is gone, I won’t have paid off my fines for another 10 years.”

If Mr Barkat follows through with his threat, the demolitions will prompt a rebuke from the international community. Last month, France and the United States joined the UN in denouncing more than 100 demolitions in East Jerusalem over the past three months.
The mayor’s decision, warned Meir Margalit, a Jerusalem city councillor, was comparable to the “price tag” policy of the settlers in the West Bank, who have attacked Palestinian villages in retaliation against official attempts to dismantle a few of the settlement outposts dotting Palestinian territory.

Yesterday the municipality was due to issue seven-day evacuation notices to the inhabitants of Beit Yehonatan, but the operation was cancelled at the last minute when police refused to co-operate.
“But the difference here is that the price tag is being levied not by the settlers themselves but by the municipality and the government on their behalf,” he said.

Frictions have been growing in Silwan for several years over the activities of another settler organisation, Elad, which, with official backing, has been building an archaeological park known as the City of David in the midst of the Palestinian neighbourhood. As Palestinians have been pushed out, at least 80 Jewish families have moved into homes nearby.
As Elad entrenches itself in Silwan, Beit Yehonatan has proved more difficult to secure. “Usually the settlers present a façade of legality to what they do,” Mr Halper said. “The problem here is that they built in an overtly illegal manner, without a permit and way over the building height restrictions.”

Mr Barkat’s resistance to evicting Beit Yehonatan’s inhabitants was highlighted last month when he tried to stave off legal pressure by proposing a new planning policy to legalise unlicensed buildings in Silwan. The mayor proposed that the rules limiting homes to two storeys would be revised to four.
The reform would have applied to Beit Yehonatan first, sealing its top three storeys but allowing the Jewish families to inhabit the rest of the building.

Although Mr Barkat promised that illegal Palestinian buildings would also be saved, Ir Amim, an Israeli human rights groups, dismissed the mayor’s claim.

The overwhelming majority of Palestinian homes would fail to qualify because land registry documents are missing for the area and a range of requirements on car parking, access roads and sewerage connections are “impossible” to meet, Orly Noy, a spokeswoman, wrote in the Haaretz newspaper last month.
She added that Palestinian areas of East Jerusalem lacked 70km of sewage pipes and that not a single new road had been paved in their neighbourhoods since Israel’s occupation in 1967.

A planning map of East Jerusalem drawn up recently by the Jerusalem municipality came to light last month, as Mr Barkat was promising to legalise buildings, showing that more than 300 homes – most of them in Silwan – were facing imminent demolition.
http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/israeli-settler-jews-get-go-ahead-to-break-the-law/

Yishai moves to legalize Jewish ownership of East Jerusalem building

Interior Minister Eli Yishai on Monday moved toward legalizing Jewish ownership of an East Jerusalem building, authorizing the district planning commission to take on the matter without first notifying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he was not involved in the matter.

Yishai’s move was exposed by Israel’s Channel 1 hours after the Jerusalem Municipality canceled the distribution of evacuation orders for Beit Yonatan, a residential building erected by nationalist Jews in the heart of an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem.



Yishai confirmed the that he had ordered the move and had received assurance that a majority of the council would vote in favor of the move.

The interior minister also said that the residents of Beit Yonatan agreed to move their occupancy two floors down, making it legal. Yishai added that the council was expected to approve a similar move on other contentious buildings in the area.

Less than a week ago, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat bowed to pressure from legal officials and said he would uphold the court order to evacuate and seal Beit Yonatan.

In a letter to State Prosecutor Moshe Lador, Barkat pledged to enforce the court order to evacuate the structure, though he added that he was doing so under protest. Barkat also wrote that the municipality would tear down some 200 Palestinian homes slated for demolition in East Jerusalem. He warned, however, that enforcing the court order fully is liable to trigger a violent response from the Palestinian community.

The Jewish-owned building, named for convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, lies in Silwan, an Arab part of East Jerusalem. A court ruling declared the home was built without the proper permits.

In his letter to Lador, Barkat said the court orders sabotaged a municipal plan to resolve the matter of illegal construction in East Jerusalem. The plan would have allowed the buildings and their residents to remain in place, he said.

Barkat also criticized the Jerusalem municipality’s legal consultant, Yossi Havilio, who was the most vocal official in favor of enforcing the court orders.

Last week, Lador sent a letter to Barkat reprimanding him for his refusal to shutter Beit Yonatan.

“Acceptance of the situation in which court orders are not carried out expresses a biting failure,” Lador said, adding that “Israel is a law abiding country, and in lawful countries court orders must be carried out.
http://3071km.wordpress.com/