'Quiet Transfer' in East Jerusalem Nears Completion

26 PALESTINIAN DISPLACEMENT FMR 26 ‘Quiet transfer’ in East Jerusalem nears completion by Elodie Guego Israel is close to implementing a long-term plan to expropriation is continuing. Today a mere 7% of the area of East Jerusalem transform the demographic structure of annexed remains available to Palestinians. East Jerusalem. Policies to revoke the residency Confiscated land has mostly been permits of Palestinian Jerusalemites and to Judaise used for the construction of Jewish the city have been described as ethnic cleansing. settlements and settlers’ bypass roads, in violation of international humanitarian law prohibiting an After victory in the 1967 Six Day Under the post-1967 plan designed by occupying power from transferring war, Israel annexed East Jerusalem Israeli military commanders, heavily part of its own population into – that part of the city that had been populated Palestinian areas were territory it has occupied. The under Jordanian rule since the not included, but land belonging Jerusalem Municipality has end of the British Mandate in 1948 to several Palestinian villages expediently used zoning restrictions – together with an additional 64 was incorporated into Jerusalem. to establish ‘green areas’, supposedly square kilometres which had been Those who were left outside the set aside for environmental and part of the West Bank. Jerusalem new municipal boundaries, or who recreational purposes, but actually thus became Israel’s largest city and happened to be outside Jerusalem deployed as a tactic to remove the was declared to be its ‘united and in 1967, remained residents of the land from Palestinian use and create eternal capital’. The international West Bank and, as such, subject to a reserve for Jewish housing.1 community, led by the UN, has military rule. The Israeli government continuously denounced this act of conducted a census of the Palestinian The Town Planing Scheme (TPS), unilateral annexation, arguing it is a population living within the city’s another key instrument of ‘quiet violation of the fundamental principle new administrative boundaries and transfer’, restricts building permits in international law prohibiting granted permanent residency status in already built-up areas, the only the forcible acquisition of territory. to the Palestinians residents of the areas available for Palestinian The international community annexed areas. They were entitled use. TPS has been used to restrict has consistently considered East to become Israeli citizens provided the development of Palestinian Jerusalem to be an occupied territory, they agreed to swear allegiance to neighbourhoods. Palestinians are thus akin to the West Bank and Gaza. the State of Israel. Mass refusal to only permitted to build one- or two- recognise Israeli sovereignty over storey buildings while adjacent Israeli Their support of the Palestinian occupied Jerusalem meant that only housing units may have up to eight claim to East Jerusalem was bolstered 2.3% of Palestinian Jerusalemites floors. Palestinians must go through by the fact that at the time of became Israeli citizens. The others a complex and time-consuming occupation Palestinians constituted became permanent residents of administrative process to obtain a the majority of residents in this sector Israel subject to Israeli law and building permit. These cost around of the city. Israel has engaged in a jurisdiction, just as foreigners $25,000 – a considerable obstacle as demographic battle to secure Israeli who voluntarily settle in Israel. Palestinian incomes are significantly sovereignty over the whole city. below those of Israelis. Palestinians For almost four decades successive Jerusalem permanent residency status obtain a disproportionately small governments have implemented differs significantly from citizenship. percentage of the building permits policies designed to transform the Permanent residents of Israel are issued every year by the Jerusalem city’s population structure and ensure entitled to live and work in Israel Municipality. Only 7.5% of the the numeric superiority of Jews. without special permits, to receive homes legally built during the period Until the construction of the Wall in social benefits from the National 1990-1997 belong to Palestinians. and around East Jerusalem, these Insurance Institute and to vote in local objectives were pursued through a elections. Permanent residency is not series of discriminatory regulations automatically granted to the holders’ Centre of life to reduce the Palestinian population children or spouses, however, and by rendering their lives increasingly permanent residents, unlike Israeli In 1995 the Israeli Interior Ministry intolerable and encouraging the citizens, do not enjoy the right introduced a new regulation growth of Israeli settlements in to return to Israel at any time. requiring Palestinian residents to Palestinian neighbourhoods. Today prove they had continuously lived the approximately 230,000 Palestinian Between 1967 and 1994 Israel and worked in Jerusalem during the Jerusalemites represent around 30% confiscated 24.8 square kilometres preceding seven years. The standard of Jerusalem’s total population. of land in East Jerusalem, 80% of of proof demanded is so rigorous that it belonging to Palestinians. Land even persons who have never left FMR 26 PALESTINIAN DISPLACEMENT 2 Jerusalem have difficulties in meeting Jerusalem neighbourhoods which number of houses demolished for it. Palestinians who fail to prove are entirely dependent on the city for lack of building permits has grown that their ‘centre of life’ is Jerusalem their survival and the approximately significantly According to the risk having their residency status 50,000 Palestinian permanent Israeli human rights organisation, revoked and their requests for family residents forced to relocate due to B’tselem, between 1999 and 2003 in reunification and child registration the discriminatory tax regime and East Jerusalem 229 houses and other rejected. The number of Jerusalem the building permits’ restrictions structures were demolished while in residency ID cards confiscated after imposed by Israeli authorities. 2004 and 2005 alone 198 houses were promulgation of the ‘centre of life’ demolished, displacing 594 people.3 policy rose by over 600%. Suburbs Palestinians holding Israeli permanent This acceleration coincides with on Jerusalem’s outskirts, to which residency permits who now find new land expropriations and plans many East Jerusalemites had moved themselves on the West Bank side for the development of new Jewish as a result of earlier discriminatory of the Wall, particularly those living settlements in the heart of Palestinian policies, were declared to be outside outside Jerusalem’s boundaries, are neighbourhoods such as in Ras- Jerusalem, thus removing the set to lose their residency status al-amud or the Mount of Olives. residency rights of over 50,000 people. under the ‘centre of life’ policy. In order to defend their claims to The Wall makes many unable to The construction of the Wall along residency and the social rights which reach their places of work and basic and inside Jerusalem’s municipal go with it, some 20,000 borders will definitively Palestinians returned to prevent the return of The Dome of live within Jerusalem’s Palestinians expelled the Rock, East Jerusalem municipal boundaries. from Jerusalem by land confiscations, Israel’s ‘centre of house demolitions or life’ policy seriously pressure from extremist affects Palestinians’ settlers’ groups. They entitlement to health will lose their rights to and social benefits, to permanent residency family reunification, in Jerusalem under the child registration and ‘centre of life’ policy membership of the and will no longer Israeli national insurance be able to enter the scheme. The ‘centre city without special of life’ is verified for International Jeffrey/ACT Paul permits. The properties each annual renewal that they have of spouses’ residence abandoned in Jerusalem permits. Thousands of Palestinian services inside Jerusalem which they risk being seized under Israeli’s children born in Jerusalem of parents must do to retain Israeli residency Absentee Property Law. who do not both hold a Jerusalem ID status. Family members who do not have been denied registration and are hold permanent residency cards This eight-metre-high Wall has unable to exercise their basic rights, will now be unable to circumvent given Israel a pretext to achieve including their right to education. Israeli regulations on residency and long-established goals under the While the ‘centre of life’ policy had their spouses holding an Israeli ID guise of security. Jerusalem is at the been officially discontinued, the will have to choose between living heart of all the antagonisms in the outbreak of the Al Aqsa intifada in on a different side of the Wall or Middle East. International silence September 2000 led to its reactivation. losing their jobs and residency and failure to speak out against Since May 2002, Israel has refused rights in Jerusalem. According Israeli’s transfer strategy are likely to accept applications for family to the UN Special Rapporteur on to have irreversible consequences unification and refused to register the Situation of Human rights and destroy regional prospects for the children of permanent residents in the OPT, “Israel hopes to peace. The transfer of Palestinians who were born in the OPT. further reduce the Palestinian will soon be an undisputed reality population of East Jerusalem by

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