The world does not recognise Israeli sovereignty over either west or East Jerusalem.’ The Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, December 2016. Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
Three Republican senators have introduced a bill
to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the US embassy
there, challenging US president-elect Donald Trump to fulfil his pledge
to do so as soon as he gets into office.
However, while other presidential candidates, including Bill Clinton and George W Bush, also promised to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, they backed away once in office and deferred implementation of the 1995 congressional Jerusalem Embassy Act, which recognises Jerusalem as Israel’s “undivided” capital and calls for relocating the US embassy there.
In fact, the world does not recognise Israeli sovereignty over either west or East Jerusalem. This is why not a single country has an embassy in there. If it did, it would be violating international law as well as United Nations security council resolution 478. The resolution confirmed that Israel’s 1980 “basic law” which declared East and west Jerusalem “complete and united” as the capital of Israel, is “a violation of international law”.
My father’s family was forcibly expelled in 1948 from three houses they built and owned in the al-Baqa’a neighbourhood in the western part of Jerusalem – just a few minutes away from the Talbiyeh neighbourhood. This is where David Friedman, Trump’s nominee for US ambassador to Israel, has acquired a house. As a result of my family’s expulsion, I was raised in East Jerusalem. In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and Gaza, Palestinians have been living under Israeli occupation for almost 50 years. This means that more than two generations of us were born under occupation, of whom more than 75% are my age or younger.
By moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, the Trump administration would not only be violating international law, it would also be denying the Palestinian right to self-determination and freedom. Since 1967, Israel has been transforming Jerusalem from a multi-religious and multicultural city into a “reunified” Jewish city under its exclusive control. It has accelerated Jerusalem’s “Judaisation” through policies that specifically aim to minimise the number of Palestinians. Such policies have included the revocation of the residency of Palestinian Jerusalemites under the pretext of “breach of allegiance”, restrictions on family unification, discriminatory urban and zoning policies, the construction of the wall that slices through Jerusalem and the West Bank, starting in 2002, and the closure of major Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem.
These policies have been accompanied, as I set out in a recent policy brief, by a deliberately engineered economic collapse of East Jerusalem, as seen in the deterioration of the tourism sector and the commercial markets of the Old City.
The relocation of the US embassy sends the message that the fate of the nearly 300,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem is of no importance. This is especially alarming since almost 82% of Palestinians in East Jerusalem already lived below the poverty line in 2014, compared with around 28% of the Jewish population. We also face an acute housing crisis, since we have access to only 13% of the land of East Jerusalem, while illegal settlements are being built on 35% of this land.
The embassy move would also embolden Israel to further expand its illegal settlements throughout Palestine. The US administration has reaffirmed its – rhetorical – opposition to the settlements over the past five decades, both in secretary of state John Kerry’s latest speech and with its abstention from the UN security council resolution 2334 condemning Israel’s settlement activities. However, the incoming Trump administration’s position seems to be that the settlements are not “an obstacle for peace”.
Friedman himself heads the American Friends of Bet El Institutions, which has raised tens of millions of dollars for the illegal settlement of Bet El, located to the north of Jerusalem. Trump donated $10,000 to institutions based in the settlement in 2003, and Bet El also receives funds from the family of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. Even more alarming, Friedman’s recognition of Jerusalem as the “eternal capital of the Jewish people” and his claim that “the holy city of Jerusalem belongs forever to the Jewish people” would give the green light to more incursions by rightwing Israeli Jews into the al-Aqsa mosque compound, further inflaming tension in the region.
Trump must ask himself whether he really wants to terminally damage any prospect of peace between Israelis and Palestinians and prevent an entire people from enjoying their freedoms and rights. If not, he should back away from recognising Israel’s claims to Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem and the rest of the Palestinian land it occupied in 1967, and work toward a just solution that will bring a lasting peace.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/10/us-embassy-jerusalem-palestine-donald-trump-tel-aviv
However, while other presidential candidates, including Bill Clinton and George W Bush, also promised to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, they backed away once in office and deferred implementation of the 1995 congressional Jerusalem Embassy Act, which recognises Jerusalem as Israel’s “undivided” capital and calls for relocating the US embassy there.
In fact, the world does not recognise Israeli sovereignty over either west or East Jerusalem. This is why not a single country has an embassy in there. If it did, it would be violating international law as well as United Nations security council resolution 478. The resolution confirmed that Israel’s 1980 “basic law” which declared East and west Jerusalem “complete and united” as the capital of Israel, is “a violation of international law”.
My father’s family was forcibly expelled in 1948 from three houses they built and owned in the al-Baqa’a neighbourhood in the western part of Jerusalem – just a few minutes away from the Talbiyeh neighbourhood. This is where David Friedman, Trump’s nominee for US ambassador to Israel, has acquired a house. As a result of my family’s expulsion, I was raised in East Jerusalem. In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and Gaza, Palestinians have been living under Israeli occupation for almost 50 years. This means that more than two generations of us were born under occupation, of whom more than 75% are my age or younger.
By moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, the Trump administration would not only be violating international law, it would also be denying the Palestinian right to self-determination and freedom. Since 1967, Israel has been transforming Jerusalem from a multi-religious and multicultural city into a “reunified” Jewish city under its exclusive control. It has accelerated Jerusalem’s “Judaisation” through policies that specifically aim to minimise the number of Palestinians. Such policies have included the revocation of the residency of Palestinian Jerusalemites under the pretext of “breach of allegiance”, restrictions on family unification, discriminatory urban and zoning policies, the construction of the wall that slices through Jerusalem and the West Bank, starting in 2002, and the closure of major Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem.
These policies have been accompanied, as I set out in a recent policy brief, by a deliberately engineered economic collapse of East Jerusalem, as seen in the deterioration of the tourism sector and the commercial markets of the Old City.
The relocation of the US embassy sends the message that the fate of the nearly 300,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem is of no importance. This is especially alarming since almost 82% of Palestinians in East Jerusalem already lived below the poverty line in 2014, compared with around 28% of the Jewish population. We also face an acute housing crisis, since we have access to only 13% of the land of East Jerusalem, while illegal settlements are being built on 35% of this land.
The embassy move would also embolden Israel to further expand its illegal settlements throughout Palestine. The US administration has reaffirmed its – rhetorical – opposition to the settlements over the past five decades, both in secretary of state John Kerry’s latest speech and with its abstention from the UN security council resolution 2334 condemning Israel’s settlement activities. However, the incoming Trump administration’s position seems to be that the settlements are not “an obstacle for peace”.
Friedman himself heads the American Friends of Bet El Institutions, which has raised tens of millions of dollars for the illegal settlement of Bet El, located to the north of Jerusalem. Trump donated $10,000 to institutions based in the settlement in 2003, and Bet El also receives funds from the family of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. Even more alarming, Friedman’s recognition of Jerusalem as the “eternal capital of the Jewish people” and his claim that “the holy city of Jerusalem belongs forever to the Jewish people” would give the green light to more incursions by rightwing Israeli Jews into the al-Aqsa mosque compound, further inflaming tension in the region.
Trump must ask himself whether he really wants to terminally damage any prospect of peace between Israelis and Palestinians and prevent an entire people from enjoying their freedoms and rights. If not, he should back away from recognising Israel’s claims to Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem and the rest of the Palestinian land it occupied in 1967, and work toward a just solution that will bring a lasting peace.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/10/us-embassy-jerusalem-palestine-donald-trump-tel-aviv
No comments:
Post a Comment