An Absurdity Gains Momentum

by Michal Schwartz

With the help of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Israel may soon accomplish two of its vital goals: (1) to reduce the number of Arabs in Jerusalem holding Israeli identity cards, and (2) to win universal agreement to its sovereignty over the Old City and environs.

Since the Occupation began, Israel has sought to maintain a demographic balance in Jerusalem of 75 Jews for every 25 Arabs. In the early nineties, however, the scale tipped to 69:31. The Israeli response was to undertake demographic cleansing. Labor's Interior Minister, Haim Ramon, began the operation in 1995. Eli Suissa, his successor in the Likud-Shas government, applied Ramon's policy wholesale in the following year. The cleansing proceeded on two planes. First, the authorities continued the old policy of demolishing homes: in the rural outskirts of Jerusalem, they have destroyed - from 1995 till the present - 109 Arab houses that had been built without permits NOTE 1, and a thousand more are slated for demolition. (An Arab's chances of getting a building permit are extremely slim, and as families grow, many build without them.) On the bureaucratic plane: the "delete" buttons clicked on the keyboards of the Interior Ministry in East Jerusalem. Thousands of Palestinians discovered that they had vanished from the list of the city's residents. (See this issue, p. 8.)

A new wind blows, however. The forthcoming "permanent status agreement" may solve this perennial problem, enabling Israel's leaders to sleep once more. The top negotiators, Oded Eiran for Israel and Yasser Abed Rabo for the Palestinians, have been sitting in secret sessions weaving a plan by which the PA will take on civil responsibility for certain of the Palestinian areas that Israel had earlier annexed to Jerusalem. (Ben Caspit, ma'ariv, Dec. 24, 1999.) These may include the densely populated northern neighborhoods, from Beit Hanina and Shu'afat (both village and refugee camp) to Kalandia. They line a narrow corridor between Jerusalem and Ramallah. Despite the demographic problem, Israel annexed them after 1967 because there is an airport on the corridor's northern end called Kalandia (Hebrew: Atarot), which the government then thought would serve international traffic. This did not happen. Meanwhile, the state and the city are obliged to provide services to the annexed "Jerusalemites" of those neighborhoods, in the form of National Insurance, free schooling and health care. The total expenses for all of Jerusalem's 200,000 Palestinians amounts to $75 million per year. Barak and Ramon (now Special Minister for Jerusalem Affairs) are checking how much of this amount the government might save by getting rid of the northern neighborhoods. NOTE 2

Nadav Shargai of ha'aretz adds (December 28, 1999) that Israel will offer these neighborhoods to the PA under the rubric of "Area B". In other words, the Palestinians will have civil sovereignty. And who will be in charge of security? That may be discussed in the future. But if the scheme works, Israel will then be prepared to hand over additional neighborhoods, such as Jabel Mukabbar and Walaja on the southern periphery. Such "surgery", says Eiran, may relieve Israel of responsibility for some 110,000 Palestinians. (See Box, p. 9.)

These proposals are part of a broader plan, however. Toward the end of 1999, Israel was supposed to redeploy its forces in the West Bank once again, but it had a problem with the Palestinian negotiators, who did not want to accept the particular areas it offered. They complained that they had not been consulted, and that the territories in question - 5% of the West Bank - were sparsely populated and unimportant. This stalemate dragged on for about two months. Yet on January 5, 2000, Arafat suddenly agreed to accept the lands in question. What brought about his change of mind?

The Sanctification of Abu Dis

According to Palestinian sources, Arafat and Abu Mazen had a meeting with Barak in Ramallah just before the latter flew to Shepherdstown in early January to meet the Syrians. Barak made a promise (to date, unfulfilled): he would give the PA dominion over parts of Abu Dis, 10% of which is within the holy city's official boundaries. This promise convinced Arafat to accept the not-so-desirable lands.

After the meeting in Ramallah, Israel's Minister of Justice, Yossi Beilin, congratulated the Palestinians on their acceptance of Abu Dis as a substitute for Jerusalem. (Nadav Shargai, ha'aretz, Jan. 2.) This notion had already been put forth in an unofficial plan that Beilin himself had worked out with Abu Mazen a few years ago. According to this scheme, the Old City and environs - including all the holy sites - would remain undivided under Israeli sovereignty. On the other hand, little Abu Dis was to become al-Quds ("the holy", the Arabic name for Jerusalem). Here would be the capital of the Palestinian entity.

Imaginative? Here is a scoop by Sa'idda Hamad of the London-based al-hayat (Jan. 24). Claiming highly-placed diplomatic sources, she wrote that during Arafat's last visit to Washington, he reached various understandings with the American administration and the CIA concerning Jerusalem. Among them was this: he agreed to the building of a special road (perhaps a tunnel - M.S.), that would enable Palestinians to travel unimpeded from Abu Dis to the al-Aksa mosque. The PA would have sovereignty over this passage - under the supervision of the CIA.

There are other indications too that this program, "Abu Dis = al-Quds", is taking on flesh. In ha'aretz (Jan. 9), Amos Harel reported that "construction of the building for the Palestinian National Council in Abu Dis is nearing completion." In 1996 a grand and mysterious edifice began to arise in the heart of that village. Its location provoked rumors that it would house the Palestinian parliament. The notion that Abu Dis might become al-Quds spurred immediate criticism, leading the PA to ban reporters from approaching the rising structure. challenge's sister publication in Arabic, al-sabar, was among the first to voice suspicion (Sept. 27, 1996). In response to al-sabar, Jamil Othman Nasser, the PA's "governor of Jerusalem" - from his office in Abu Dis - put out a vigorous denial.

It would appear that the mayor of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert (Likud), also supports the idea. Within the tenth of Abu Dis over which Jerusalem has stretched its border, there are 33 dunams (about eight acres) that belonged to Jews in the 1930's. Of these, the millionaire Irving Moskovitch bought 1.3 dunams. The Jerusalem municipality then issued a tender for the development of a Jewish neighborhood on all 33, budgeting $100,000 for planning. The project was sidetracked by "ir shalem", an NGO that campaigns against Jewish settlement in the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem. It found that the tender was rigged in such a way the Moskovitch would get the development contracts. In July 1999, after ir shalem opened legal proceedings, the city froze the plan. Attorney Dani Zeidman of ir shalem told challenge that the city does not intend to cancel the freeze.

Mayor Olmert has proclaimed his unwillingness to transfer the "Jerusalem tenth" of Abu Dis to the PA. Yet Meir Margalit, who represents Meretz on the city council, has told us that certain indicators show otherwise. In a council meeting on January 17, for example, the right-wing members demanded that Olmert issue a written announcement, opposing the transfer of parts of Abu Dis to the PA. The mayor refused, saying he didn't believe that Barak intended to do such a thing. Despite Olmert's public pronouncements, Margalit continued, "he supports boundary adjustments that will transfer to the Palestinians territories that are partly in Israel's hands. Such areas are to be found in Abu Dis, al-Azariyah, and al-Ram. Olmert is not interested in providing services to those neighborhoods."

Olmert's tacit support for the concept, "Abu Dis = al-Quds", in no way contradicts his right-wing ideology. Elsewhere - in areas that Israel clearly intends to keep - he fully supports the demolition of Arab houses and the growth of Jewish settlement in the heart of densely populated Arab neighborhoods. His attitude might be put thus: Let them have a free hand in the areas they control, and we'll have a free hand to rip down and to plant wherever we are. In opposition to scheduled house demolitions, for example, Labor's Yossi Beilin, together with Ramon, have been working out a plan that would legitimize all the homes that have been built without permits while forbidding the construction of more. Olmert opposes this.

At Ras al-Amud and Jabel Abu Ghne'im (Har Homa) the erection of Jewish neighborhoods is now in high gear. (NOTE 3) During the Netanyahu years, the Americans put pressure on, and the project was frozen. When Barak came to power, however, construction went forward. In April seventeen families are due to inhabit new houses in Ras al-Amud, which will eventually include 119 apartments, a synagogue, a commercial center and a kindergarten.

Under the rule of the Labor Party, in short, the settlers find it easier to actualize their plans, as long as the latter coincide with the secret map in the brain of Ehud Barak. Thus Labor intends to fulfil its historical mission, gaining as much land as possible with the smallest possible number of Arabs. Arafat, in turn, can expect to receive the reverse.

Endnotes:

1. B'tselem, injustice in the Holy City, Jerusalem, December 1999, p. 7.

2. See Gidi Weitz in the Jerusalem weekly Kol Ha'ir, February 11, 2000.

3. On the intensive new work at Jabel Ghne'im (Har Homa), see Baruch Kra, "Only the Left Can Build Har Homa - and It Is," ha'aretz, February 6, 2000.