The Cleansing of East Jerusalem and Prospects for Statehood for Palestine

On September 2, settlers from an East Jerusalem settlement* called Ma'ale Zeitim, one largely funded by U.S. billionaire Irving Moskovitz, took over one of the rooms in a Palestinian home in the neighborhood of Ras al-Amud. They came to the door of the house, forced their way in and stayed, backed up by a contingent of Israeli police, and supported by an Israeli court decision in their favor. The settlers claim that this property was owned by Jews before 1948, and therefore they are taking back what is theirs. Once installed in part of the family's home, they put a barbed wire fence through the middle of the family yard.



Ras al-Amud neighorhood lies below Jewish cemetery on opposite hillside.

*Settlement:. a colony of Jews in houses built on Palestinian land, illegal by international law, but supported and protected by Israeli law.

If this one-room occupation follows the pattern of the 2009 settler/government supported actions in another East Jerusalem neighborhood (Sheik Jarrah), the righteous settlers will end up evicting the Palestinian family, which will then be homeless and without any recourse to compensation. (See Just Vision's documentary film, "My Neighborhood." ) But compensation is not the issue. The issue is this: thousands of Palestinians owned homes and property in West Jerusalem before 1948, but they cannot use the Israeli courts to lay claim to them, much less expect police escorts to help them access those homes and forcefully evict the inhabitants.

This is the meaning of apartheid -- separate and unequal laws for different groups based on ethnicity.

Settler guard post on Pal roof in Old City




Israeli flag on settler apartment in the Old City of East Jerusalem



 When I recently toured East Jerusalem with ICAHD (The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions) I saw the spiffy settlement apartment buildings plunked down on stolen properties and supplied with playgrounds, sidewalks, parking lots and street lights, next to Palestinian homes where residents, without sidewalks and playgrounds, are forced to burn their garbage alongside broken roads and in empty lots because of the lack of municipal services for which they pay ample taxes.** In contrast to the protected settlerments, 27,000 of the Palestinian homes in this part of the city have demolition orders from Israel. To the inhabitants of these homes, waiting for the bulldozers to come probably feels somewhat like having a star of David painted on your house in Germany in the 1930's. You know you are in trouble, but you don't know when that trouble will come.

**Palestinians are one third of the population of Jerusalem (East and West), but pay 40% of the total taxes and receive in services and schools 10% of the municipal budget.)

Will statehood solve these problems for Palestine? Two states? One state? An apartheid state? Everyone concerned with this isue in the States and here has begun to debate this question. What should a future Palestine look like, and how to get there? I draw my information from Palestinian activists- academics, community organizers and labor unionists -- who are well informed and are the ones whose efforts will shape the changes in the years ahead.

Majdi, one of the great guides for the group I brought to Palestine this year, declared that the main issue to be addressed is that of the refugees' right to return to their original homes and leave the miserable refugee camps. But in the meantime, while they wait for a political solution, the conditions in the refugee camps must be improved, to provide the basic conditions for a decent life. According to Majdi, neglecting these needs is making the camps "factories of violence," because young people do not see any hope for a better life. If they have two states, that means the end to the Right of Return, because refugees will be forced to reside in the Palestinian state instead of allowing them to go to their original villages which are mostly inside Israel.

However, many agree that creating a State of Palestine, with open borders, might be Step One towards the preferred outcome of one state joining the two peoples in this small area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. In the opinion of Isam,(see last photo) a middle class engineer, in whose garden we were enjoying the traditional sweets and coffee of the Al-Adha holiday, there cannot be one state until there has been a ten year period without violence from either side. Until then, "We can't live (in one state) with people who are trying to kill us."



Qalqilia checkpoint for workers



"Trying to kill us" takes a miriad of forms that entwine with daily life in a Kafka-esk way. An example is in the city of Qalqilia, which is right on the Green Line, the supposed border between Israel and the West Bank. Its 50,000 residents were once considered moderates but have become extremists thanks to the Separation Wall that Israel has built to enclose and imprison the whole city. There are a few openings in the wall that are checkpoints, manned by Blackwater-style security contractors. In order for 3,000 workers and farmers to get to their work on the other side of the wall in the morning, they have to line up at the checkpoint, starting at 2:00 a.m..



Sleuth hatches in the Wall around Qalqilia



Our group's visit to Qalqilia to see the effects of the wall included a view of huge hatches in the wall to allow for Qalqilia's wastewater to flow into Israel for treatment, according to agreements signed when the Green Line was drawn in 1949. Before there was a wall, the wastewater simply moved along a sleuth in the desired direction. Once the wall was built, and the hatches installed, Israel had control over the flow of the wastewater by opening or closing the hatches. In 2005 when heavy rains came, Israel closed the hatches, causing the water to back up and flood the whole city, wastewater and all.

At another gate in this wall around Qalqilia we encountered a man with a small tractor full of citrus trees. He was waiting for the "agricultural gate" to open so he could pass - with his Israeli-issued permit - to deliver the trees to a Palestinian trying to continue his nursery business in spite of the wall. The gate is supposed to open three times a day, at 7:00, 1:00 and 5:00, but only to those who have obtained a permit. For Americans it would be like needing to apply for a visa to get from your house to your own garden or to your neighbor's or to the town nearest to where you live, or to the local hospital or school.


Citrus trees waiting at the checkpoint



Israeli permit needed to cross checkpoint



But I was starting to write about one state, two states or an apartheid state. I think you can see that what exists now is the apartheid state, and the facts on the ground prove that this is the state that Israel wants, even while claiming to be a democratic state beseiged by terrorists who must be walled in or walled out. You might also see that two states are not possible as long as the settlements are allowed to stay in place on Palestinian land. The placement and size of the settlements, plus their connecting roads, plus the various military infrastructures and designated "green areas" leave only 8.7% of the West Bank in Palestinian hands, and this tiny amount is chopped up into little pieces that do not touch each other.

`Mohammed, a professor and organizer, has always believed that the goal should be for one democratic state for Jews and Palestinians (Muslim and Christian). If the settlers wanted to stay and abide by the rule of one set of laws for all, fine. If they wanted to leave, Palestinians could use the housing. There would no longer be a Jewish state, but a state where Jews would have equal rights with other citizens.

I asked Mohammed how he focuses his activism toward achieving one state.   Aside from teaching all whom he has regular contact with -- his university students and colleagues and the community served by the Palestinian House of Friendship which he founded in 1994-- about how a democracy works and the importance of being involved in one's community, and apart from promoting elections at the university, municipal and national levels, he also works outside the system to ceate a grassroots, unaffiliated network of like-minded people. The main challenge is to break through the power of the ruling party, Fatah, which is supported by the U.S. and Israel as a more or less compliant partner in the moribund "peace process."  The municipal elections that just took place across the West Bank were a measure of general disaffection with Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority (PA).  Many votes were won by the Left and Independent candidates.  As Mohammed told us, "We have the minds and determination. What we need is good management."

Other challenges to achieving statehood are the separation between the West Bank and Gaza, both politcally and geographically,  the lack of infrastructure for economic development, and restrictions impossed by the Israeli military occupation.

Sam Bahour, a Palestinian capitalist who surprised me with his astute analysis and advocacy for Palestinian rights, said in a lecture I attended last week, that the word "occupation" really does not apply anymore, since it implies a temporary situation and not this 45 year old one. He sees the solution as evolving from a "nation-state solution to a civil rights solution." Palestinians will never accept living in a Jewish State, but if everyone's civil rights are respected, Jews and Palestinians can live together. He places hope in the grassroots, not in the U.S., the E.U., nor in the PA (Palestinian Authority), which he sees as functioning only as an outsourcer of Israeli products.


Me, Mohammed, Isam, Madiha & daughter

 When I addressed my questions about the one state-two state solution to two other Palestinian intellectuals, Mazin and Sammeh, they both answered by talking about Zionism - a word that either confounds or irritates many people in the U.S. But not to talk about Zionism is to obscure the core of the problem. Zionism wants a Jewish state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea wihout the presence of non-Jews. Mazin said that statehood is not an issue between two negotiating parties (Israel and Palestine), but an issue of Zionism, which denies the human rights of Palestinians. It is a colonial ideology, initiated in the 19th century when colonizing was the name of the global game, and it includes the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population which had been multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious. Mazin also believes that Zionism "has run its course", as indicated by the shift in popular opinion in the States away from uncritical acceptance of all that Israel does.

I had dinner last night in the home of Sammieh, professor of political science at Bir Zeit University. He said that it is "the nature of Zionism" that determines what kind of state is possible. If there were two states, it would mean the expulsion of the Arab/Palestinian populatiion from inside Israel, because Israel wants a purely Jewish state, and would expell its Arabs to live in the Palestinian state. On the other hand, one state is not possible because that would require both peoples to accept one another, and Zionist Israel does not want to accept non-Jews. "We do not have a problem with Jews; they have a problem with us. They do not want to live with us, they want to control us. Therefore, Zionism must change its nature. Israelis must learn to accept the Other." Zionism's non-acceptance will cause a bloody confrontation, said Sammeh. It is Palestinians' job to convince the Israeli people that they must change. ( Sammieh referred me to the work of the Israeli author Israel Shahak who has written about Zionism in "Jewish Religion, Jewish History.")

While this issue of statehood is being debated in lecture halls and study groups, it is being decided by the Zionist-imposed facts on the ground in Palestine, epitomized by the theft of a single room in Ras al-Amud. The situation is both laden with details and at the same time simple. While one people is depriving another of basic human rights, freedom of movement, and dignity, we have an apartheid state. It must be dismantled by all possible non-violent methods beginning with the rejection of Zionism.