Israel's cleanup plan for Jerusalem to have 'very little effect' on Palestinians
MAY 31, 2017 2:01 P.M. (UPDATED: MAY 31, 2017 10:46 P.M.)
A Palestinian youth rides his bicycle next to Israel's separation wall on the outskirts of Jerusalem (AFP/Ahmad Gharabli, File)
Jerusalem Affairs and Environmental Protection Minister Zeev Elkin was quoted by Israeli media as saying Monday that the plan had been approved during a special cabinet meeting last week. However, Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer and director of the nonprofit Jerusalem Terrestrial, said Wednesday that there was no evidence that the funding plans had actually been approved.
Seidemann told Ma’an that even if these funds were to be approved, it would be merely a “drop in the sea” in the Israeli budget, which allocates just 12 percent of its budget to Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem -- despite Palestinians making up 37 percent of the city's population.
East Jerusalem was taken over by the Israeli army in 1967, along with the rest of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with the territory being officially annexed by the Israeli state in 1980, a move never recognized by the international community. Since then, more than 200,000 Israelis have moved into Israeli settlements established in the area in violation of international law.
Meanwhile, Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are not considered Israeli citizens, and are instead granted Jerusalem residency status, which can be revoked at any time for various reasons, as Palestinians must continually prove that their “center of life” has remained in Jerusalem.
In addition, Palestinians with Jerusalem residency are not permitted to vote in Israeli elections, but are able to access welfare services provided by the Israeli government.
The investments allocated to Jerusalem’s Israeli residents are several times larger than those allocated to Palestinian residents residing in the same city, Seidemann said. The majority of Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem, 82 percent, live below the poverty line.
In order to “put this in perspective,” Seidemann added, each year the Israeli government allocates $20 million of its budget to private security for the Israeli settlers residing in East Jerusalem. These funds are provided for the Israelis living in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, whose population numbers less than 3,000.
“If we assume these funds are granted, it would mean Palestinians would be getting maybe 14 percent of the overall budget on a one time basis instead of the typical 12 percent,” he said, noting that it was a “minor adjustment” of the budget and does nothing to affect the real issues facing Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, Israeli daily Haaretz reported that the plan would not include the Palestinian neighborhoods of occupied East Jerusalem, most notably Shufat refugee camp and Kafr Aqab, which have been disconnected from the rest of the city by Israel’s separation wall, deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2004.
These neighborhoods, which have been referred to as a “no man’s land,” have not received proper municipal services since the wall’s construction. While most residents hold Jerusalem residency status and continue to pay taxes to the Israeli government, they are left severely neglected by Israeli authorities, as their neighborhoods are now located on the “West Bank side” of the separation barrier.
Residents now must pass through congested Israeli-controlled checkpoints to reach Jerusalem, while these neighborhoods face increasing problems from an absence of sewage infrastructure and other basic services traditionally provided by the Jerusalem municipality, including waste collection services, healthcare, and education assistance.
Last week, the Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was mulling over a plan to completely relieve Israel of its municipal responsibilities over these Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem that have already not received most of these services for more than a decade.
According to the report, the plan would exclude these neighborhoods from accessing municipal services, including education and healthcare, and would transfer these responsibilities to the Palestinian Authority, and eventually revoke the residency status for some 140,000 Palestinians with Jerusalem IDs residing in the neighborhoods, “thus saving the country hundreds of millions of shekels.”
However, as the Israeli Jerusalem municipality has not provided basic services to these communities for years, while the Palestinian residents have continued to pay taxes to the Israeli government, it was unclear how the Israeli state would actually be saving this money.
Seidemann noted that these plans being discussed by the Israeli government represented yet “another stage of occupation denial,” adding that “Jerusalem is currently collapsing under the weight of its own fixing.”
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