[NYTr] Facts on the ground: The Judaization of East Jerusalem

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Steven Robinson - activ-l

Salt Lake City Tribune - Nov 24, 2007
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_7549730

Op-Ed:

The Judaization of East Jerusalem

By Alice Rothchild

With the Golden Dome and the ancient walls of the Old City as backdrop,
the cascade of Palestinian homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of
Silwan is undergoing a dramatic transition.

At first it is hard to spot the Israeli flags draped over scattered
homes on the hill, but it is soon easily apparent that right-wing
Jewish settlers and politically motivated archaeologists are rushing to
claim this fragment of the Holy City as the ancient City of David,
complete with a visitors center and busloads of young Israeli recruits
and tourists, and plaques thanking generous donors for their support.

Then there is the little-noticed news that the Israeli Parliament has
given preliminary approval to a bill, in violation of international law
and United Nations resolutions, which would seize East Jerusalem as a
permanent part of Israel. It is thus not surprising that Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice's belated efforts to corral reluctant world
diplomats to an increasingly downgraded meeting in Annapolis are
rapidly becoming mission impossible.

Every serious peace proposal addressing the creation of a two-state
solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict has included the
establishment of East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian
state.

At the same time, often despite pronouncements to the contrary, every
Israeli government since 1967 has supported the growth of a vigorous
ring of settlements around Jerusalem, designed to cut off East Jerusalem
Palestinians from the West Bank, and has also encouraged the intrusion
of Jewish settlers into the Arab quarters of the city itself.

Why is this important? For Palestinians, when Israel annexed East
Jerusalem the state declared only 12 percent of the land zoned for
Palestinian residential purposes, and that land was already developed,
while 34 percent was zoned for future Jewish settlements. Thus, for the
240,000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, there is a serious
housing shortage and prices are high. This has been further complicated
by construction of the 8-meter-high concrete separation wall which
winds its way through the city, separating families from each other,
educational institutions and employment.

The Jerusalem ID also gives Palestinians the right to work in Israel and
utilize Israeli health insurance and other national benefits, as well as
access to holy sites. East Jerusalem is thus a critical center for the
Palestinian economy as well as political, educational and health care
institutions.

Interestingly, millions of dollars of U.S. money have been poured into
the growing Jewish settlements in this area. Without any complaints
from the Bush administration, real estate developers openly advertise
homes in the West Bank - heavily subsidized by the Israeli government -
to Jews in the United Kingdom and the United States.

A particularly egregious player in this dangerous political game is
Irving Moskowitz, a U.S. physician, bingo and gambling magnate, who
secretly purchases Palestinian homes in and around East Jerusalem using
front organizations that appear to be Arab, and then rapidly flips the
property to extremist Jewish settlers, often arranging new construction
and infusions of militant settlers at particularly sensitive political
moments.

His foundation is also an avid supporter of American Friends of Ateret
Cohanim, a group of militant Jews who believe that Jews should be in
sole control of the Old City and should rebuild the Old Temple on the
site of the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Moskowitz earmarks millions of dollars for militant settler religious
schools most analogous to the extremist madrassas and recruitment
centers often condemned in the Islamic world. These messianic,
ideologically driven young Jewish students, like their counterparts in
Hebron and other Jewish settlements driven by religious entitlement,
are a clear impediment to any movement towards peace in this region.

It is a sad irony that the U.S. government spends millions of dollars
tracking down wealthy Arab financiers who support extremist Islamic
groups. At the same time, financiers like Moskowitz, using a
combination of subterfuge, bribery, and U.S. and Israeli governmental
collusion, openly and provocatively change the face of East Jerusalem.

At the end of the day, it is the facts on the ground that speak most
clearly. One can only wonder what Israeli Prime Minister Olmert is
thinking when he talks about a viable Palestinian state while actively
making such a dream unreachable.

Perhaps a more honest name for the current madness is not the
realization of the Road Map, but rather the steady creation of Road
Blocks that are rapidly crushing the hopes of the majority of Israelis
and Palestinians for a viable two-state solution.

[ALICE ROTHCHILD is the author of Broken Promises, Broken Dreams:
Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience.]