From: Apollo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2005 17:50:03 -0700
Subject: Meanwhile, Israel grabs the rest of Jerusalem
Meanwhile, Israel grabs the rest of Jerusalem
By Hind Khoury International Herald Tribune
THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 2005
JERUSALEM After more than 38 years of its oppressive military
occupation of the Gaza Strip, Israel will soon begin evacuating the
few thousand settlers who have been denying freedom to more than a
million Palestinians there. Israel has marketed the Gaza withdrawal
as yet another historic opportunity to jump-start the peace process.
But Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem indicate that Israel's
unilaterally imposed disengagement was never meant to start a peace
process, but rather to end one.
As the world's attention is diverted by scenes of the removal of
settlers who had no right to be in Gaza in the first place, the real
strategy behind disengagement is revealed by Israel's aggressive
moves to consolidate its occupation of Jerusalem's eastern
Palestinian sector.
At stake is the very basis of peace between Palestinians and Israelis
- a negotiated two-state solution. Israel's plan is to use
"concessions" in Gaza to remove Jerusalem from the negotiation table.
But without Jerusalem as a shared capital for Palestinians and
Israelis, there is no two-state solution.
In violation of President George W. Bush's May warning not to
prejudice the status of Jerusalem, the Israeli cabinet recently
approved a decision to complete Israel's wall in East Jerusalem by
the end of August, while the world's attention is on the Gaza
disengagement. The wall, which Israel is using to redefine
Jerusalem's borders, is being routed through occupied territory in
such a way as to maximize the number of Palestinian Jerusalemites
behind the wall, while maximizing the amount of Palestinian land on
the "Israeli" side. About 55,000 Palestinian residents of Jerusalem
will be effectively cut off from the their city, forced to access
their schools, hospitals and even families through Israeli military
gates which, as Palestinians know from experience, can be closed at a
soldier's whim.
These Palestinian Christians and Muslims will be denied free access
to the holy sites in their own city. Already, Palestinian Christians
and Muslims in the West Bank can no longer freely pray at the Old
City's Church of the Holy Sepulcher or the Noble Sanctuary (Haram al
Sharif).
Difficulty in accessing their own city will cause Palestinian
Jerusalemites to go deeper into the West Bank for educational,
medical and religious services. Israel will then have a pretext -
"insufficient links" to the city - for revoking their Jerusalem
residency rights. To date, more than 6,500 Palestinians have lost
their residency rights in the Jewish state's unstated but measurable
efforts to rid the Holy City of as many Christians and Muslims as
possible.
Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes in and around occupied East
Jerusalem are increasingly common, with more than 50 homes destroyed
so far this year. Sixty-four homes in a Palestinian neighborhood near
Jerusalem's Old City have demolition orders pending against them,
even though the homes were built on privately owned Palestinian land.
According to the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions, there
are more than 10,000 outstanding demolition orders against
Palestinian buildings in East Jerusalem. Such orders are usually
enforced without warning and in the middle of the night.
As the homes of Christians and Muslims are destroyed, new Israeli
settlements in and around East Jerusalem continue to expand. A few
months ago, Israel announced plans to build 3,500 Israeli housing
units to the east of Jerusalem - in an area which would complete the
encirclement of occupied East Jerusalem by Israeli settlements. The
Israeli press announced recently the planned construction of 21 new
Jewish homes in the heart of the Old City's Muslim Quarter. Muslims
have no equal right to build homes in the Jewish Quarter.
Israel greedily insists on retaining control over the whole of
Jerusalem, rejecting Palestinian compromises to share the city on
equal terms. Indeed, Israel, as a Jewish state, rejects the very idea
of a pluralistic Jerusalem. But Jerusalem is sacred to all three of
the world's monotheistic religions - it cannot be the monopoly of
just one.
The Palestinian Authority remains committed to a two-state solution
based on international law. However, negotiations require an Israeli
partner and Israel, as the more powerful party, realizes it can
impose its own agenda rather than negotiate a solution.
Israeli violations of U.S. policy and international law are annually
funded by billions of dollars from the American taxpayer. Yet Israel
repays American goodwill and financial support by adopting measures
to which the United States is opposed and which risk destroying the
very two-state solution to which President Bush is so publicly
committed.
America has so far not been willing to hold Israel accountable. Such
inaction reduces U.S. credibility and alienates potential friends,
undermining efforts to defeat terrorism and to build Middle East
democracy.
(Hind Khoury is the Palestinian Authority's minister of state for
Jerusalem affairs.)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/10/opinion/edkhoury.php
--
The US is: "...a nation of 200 million used-car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable."
-Hunter S. Thompson
"Friend, hope for the truth while you are alive. Jump into experience while you are alive! What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death. If you don't break your ropes while you are alive, do you think ghosts will do it after?"
-Kabir
ABDUL WAHID OSMAN BELAL
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