Meanwhile, in Jerusalem...
The list of inflammatory, escalatory, illegal, and otherwise violent actions that the US-supported Government of Israel has taken against Palestinians in recent weeks continues to grow.
One recent addition to this long list, as reported by AP yesterday, is this:
- Jerusalem planners have approved the construction of a new Jewish neighborhood in the city's Muslim Quarter, officials said Tuesday, threatening to further inflame tensions between Israelis and Palestinians in the city claimed by both as a capital.
The plan to build 21 apartments for Jews in the walled Old City's Muslim Quarter was approved 5-2 by a local planning board late Monday, said Yosef Alalu, a dovish city council member who is on the committee. The plan has to go through several more bureaucratic stages before final approval.
The plan was presented to the planning board by the Housing Ministry.
When will we hear President Bush or any other US political leaders speaking up to denounce this latest application by Israel of unilateral, quite illegal, and extremely inflammatory structural violence against the Muslims of Palestine?
When will we see the US leadership take concrete steps to rein in the inflammatory actions of its coddled darling, Israel?
When will we see the US start to forthrightly advocate the building of an equality-based political order in Israel/Palestine, whether within one single state or two?
(Okay, I'm not holding my breath. But will they please do something?)
The present walls of Jerusalem's Old City were built by the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. But most of the structures inside their enclosure--including the whole Muslim Haram al-Sharif area with its two holy mosques; the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and numerous other ancient churches; and the foundations of the Jewish Temple-- are far, far older than the walls. In line with traditional Islamic principles of city planing, the city is divided into four ethnic/religious "quarters"-- the Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Armenian Quarters.
At the end of the 1947-48 fighting that accompanied the birth of the State of Israel, the whole Old City remained in the hands of the Jordanian Army, while the infant Israeli forces held the city's more modern western suburbs. On each side of the armistice line there was near-total ethnic cleansing. The Jordanians evicted some 2,000 Jewish residents from the Old City's Jewish Quarter, and the Israelis evicted some 60,000 Palestinians from West Jerusalem and nearby villages.
After Israel conquered the Old City (and the rest of the West Bank) from Jordan in 1967, it immediately set about establishing a strong Jewish presence in the Old City. It notably did not allow any reciprocal "return" by the Palestinians of West Jerusalem to the properties from which they'd been evicted 19 years earlier.
In addition, it knocked down the whole, Muslim-populated "Mughrabiyyeh" quarter next to the Wailing Wall (Ha-Kotel), in order to make the open plaza where nowadays many Jewish and Israeli ceremonies are held. Land records from the time showed that the clearing of that area involved demolishing 135 homes, two ancient mosques, and a Sufi zawia (shrine)
Nowadays, the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem is a thriving, densely-populated hub of Jewish-Israeli life. But settler activists-- including, in an earlier era, Ariel Shatron-- have also been covertly acquiring and establishing tiny settlemnt footholds throughout the city's other quarters...
And now comes this latest, official Housing Ministry plan for a new enclave of 21 apartments in the Muslim Quarter...
It will indeed be interesting to see what the reaction of the Bush administration will be.
(And here, quite by chance, is a lovely recent article about just one of the minor treasures in the Muslim Quarter.)
Helena,
Sharon show the world he is sacrifices by pulling out of Gaza strips(few kilometres) Israel illegally occupied, there are many UN resolutions asked Israel to withdraw from Palestinians land, no attention whatsoever from Israel for that UN orders.
But the propaganda and the middling inside Israel between parties and extremist Jews is just a show to cover and show and to show the world how Sharon determent leader and hard man that the is on his promises, funny yah. In fact Sharon just recently refused to participate in talk with Palestinians supervised by some big players like Russia and UK and other courtiers because he knew this will bound him and Israeli to such agreement s.
The reality we got all the time hidden agenda from Israelis they leaves this part of Palestinian’s land and go their or approved a new settlements (illegal also) and demanding more aid from US after flooding the US public with peaceful Israeli move and propaganda media show Israelis sacrifices by giving back some holy land to the Arab!.
The last funny matter is the dismantling Gaza settlements the UN convoy side Egypt agrees to take the rubbish!!!
This so naive thinks from Israeli some gulf countries offer Israelis compensations for these settlements they refused on the ground that Palestinians government corrupted!!
Then they refused to take their rubbish during their withdraw.
Helena, we're talking about a plan that (1) involves a couple of buildings; (2) doesn't appear to involve the eviction of any Palestinians from their homes; (3) will require years of additional bureaucratic procedures before it's built (if it ever is); and (4) may be overturned by a court because it's apparently contrary to municipal law. I agree this is a provocation under the present political circumstances, but don't you think you may be overreacting just a little?
(Actually, the part of this that bothers me most is the fact that the municipality is designating apartments "for Jews," which is also contrary to Israeli law. If the Housing Ministry ever offers a tender for the apartments on that basis, the ISC will strike it down in five minutes.)
But the propaganda and the middling inside Israel between parties and extremist Jews is just a show to cover and show and to show the world how Sharon determent leader
Salah, I know people who are right in the middle of the struggle going on in Israel, and believe me, it's very real.
Professor Jacqueline Rose, The Question of Zion,
"Israel is going down the drain economically, politically, and in every way, and if we continue to live like this we will destroy ourselves."
http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/images/fortherecord.php?ID=232
http://www.angelfire.com/il2/borochov/territory.html
"Rose has bought into the idea that the Holocaust "fully enters the [Israeli] national memory only after the 1967 Six Day War". This is nonsense. The Holocaust, and the "illegal" immigration of refugees, galvanised the Jewish resistance in Palestine in the aftermath of the Second World War. It fiercely fed the polemic of the new state from 1948."
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/reviews/article225109.ece
Sharon must be doing something right if he has simultaneously enraged both Palestinian hardliners AND Israeli settlers.
WmPeele, I think you completely misunderstand Palestinian domestic politics if you think it's the Palestinian hardliners who are particularly upset by Sharon's continued land-grabs in Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank. It is not. That is what they have always confidently expected him to do. But it's the Palestinian "moderates"-- the ones who have been trying desperately to convince their compatriots that Sharon is a person the Palestinians can and should do business with, who find actions like this one particularly enraging...
Or maybe you were unaware that there is a Palestinian internal politics?
Re Sharon must be doing something right:
Mainstream media ombudsmen like to say that they must be doing something right if they receive complaints both from pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian supporters. To evoke this response is the rationale for letter writing among pro-Israel supporters in response to the maybe one line of sympathy in a story expressed for Palestinians by the mainstream media.
Very informative post, as usual for your site, which is terrific. I hope you don't mind that I referenced it.
I hope Israel takes as much of Jerusalem as it pleases. Are Jews allowed to go to Mecca? So why should Arabs be allowed in Jerusalem. When Jordan ruled the city they desicrated Jewish graves, so who cares if Arabs are insulted, move to Egypt.