MIFTAH
Friday, 29 March. 2024
 
Your Key to Palestine
The Palestinian Initiatives for The Promotoion of Global Dialogue and Democracy
 
 
 

It’s ironic, how for decades Palestinians and Arabs alike have sung the praises of Jerusalem, describing its golden domes, church bells and walled city and its historical alleyways that retrace the footsteps of Jesus and Prophet Mohammed’s ascension to heaven, without ever setting foot inside its borders.

For the Arabs – Muslims and Christians alike – and the Palestinians in particular, Jerusalem symbolizes much more than the aspired future capital of the Palestinian state. It is the crux of their struggle, the apex of their aspirations for liberation and the embodiment of all they hold sacred. No other city in Palestine, or the world, for that matter, can conjure up such passionate sentiments and fierce loyalty as Jerusalem among the Palestinians.

It is without a doubt, one of the most ironic – and tragic – situations of all times. Palestinian ID holders living in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, some just kilometers from Jerusalem’s celebrated walled city, will most likely never reach the Dome of the Rock to perform Friday prayers or the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for the Easter Mass. Banned by Israeli measures, which bar Palestinian ID holders from entering Jerusalem except for those few who carry an Israeli-issued entry permit, the overwhelming majority of Palestinians can only hope beyond hope that one day they might get a glimpse of the city they have so long epitomized.

Irony is a powerful tool and one Israel exploits to a tee. Imagine, a cowboy from Texas, a rocket scientist from the Ukraine or a new Jewish immigrant from Ethiopia can all enter Jerusalem unfettered, walk the aged alleys of its Old City and even visit the Aqsa Mosque compound where the magnificent gold-domed Dome of the Rock is situated. Virtual strangers to the city and its people have full rights to visit here and frolic among the aromatic smells of spices and sweets that make Jerusalem so distinct, while the city is cruelly prohibited to most Palestinians, those people who hold it dearest to their hearts.

For any Muslim, visiting the Aqsa Mosque Compound, considered the third holiest place in Islam and said to be the place where Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven on his winged horse Buraq, is a pilgrimage of importance only second to the Haj to Mecca. Muslims from around the world make their way to Jerusalem each year to visit the site and pray in its mosques. However, Palestinians living in the West Bank Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis or Al-Ezarriyeh can only peek at its glistening golden dome from above the gray concrete of the Apartheid Wall built around their towns, severing them from the city.

And Christian Palestinians from Bethlehem or Zababdeh in the northern West Bank can only hope that one Easter or Christmas they will be allowed to walk the Via Delarosa, pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and pay their respects to the place set in the annals of history as the venue of Jesus’ crucifixion.

It was not always like this. Here, irony lifts its head again to point out another absurdity of the Israeli occupation. Prior to the Intifada of 1987 when all of the Palestinian territories were under Israeli military occupation, Jerusalem was virtually opened to all. Without the ubiquitous checkpoints peppered throughout the West Bank and particularly around Jerusalem, residents of the West Bank and Gaza would travel to the city to sightsee, shop and most importantly perform their religious duties.

Only in the early nineties during the Intifada and particularly after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 did the first Jerusalem checkpoints begin to show their ugly faces. As Palestinians were celebrating in the streets of Ramallah, Nablus, Jericho and Gaza City, made to believe that this was the beginning of the end to all their woes, Israel was insidiously encircling Jerusalem, slowly isolating it from its Palestinian surroundings, gradually cutting off its West Bank lifeline, so that 10 years later, the reality on the ground was an accumulation of measures more or less legitimized by agreements the Palestinians had willingly signed.

Now, as the plan to imprison Jerusalem within its snake-like wall and cut off its West Bank blood supply from all sides have nearly come full circle, the Palestinians have realized Israel’s plans all too late. It was inconceivable 10 years ago that any Palestinian could not reach Jerusalem or live, work and marry within its borders. Today, all of these normal, everyday activities have become nearly impossible for those who do not carry Israeli-issued Jerusalem IDs.

Even owners of the precious blue-jacketed Jerusalem ID card, which grants them permanent residency in the city, are not safe from the throes of the occupation. Israeli law requires that those living in Jerusalem must continue to prove that their “center of life” is in the Israeli-proclaimed municipality borders or they are threatened with losing their residency status.

There are also those Jerusalem residents caught on the West Bank side of the wall. The Jerusalem areas of Kufr Aqab, cut off from Jerusalem by the Qalandia Checkpoint and the Shufat Refugee Camp, will both be on the other side of the Wall even though their residents carry Jerusalem IDs. This is besides the tens of thousands of Jerusalemites who, over the years, have made their homes in West Bank suburbs of Jerusalem such as Al Ram, Dahiet Al Barid or Al-Ezzariyeh and who now find themselves cut off from the city where they work, seek medical attention and send their children to school.

And still, Israel does not leave a stone unturned. In its overall campaign against Palestinians coupled with its plans to empty as many Palestinians from Jerusalem as possible, a new recommendation by Israeli right-wing Foreign and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni was put forth and subsequently approved by Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to revoke the residency status of three Hamas PLC members and Jerusalem residents - Mohammed Abu Tir, Mohammed Totah and Ahmed Atoun. The rationale? Basically, the Israeli government is irked that the Palestinian government did not condemn last week’s suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, carried out, not by Hamas, but by the Islamic Jihad.

It goes without saying that in carrying out all of these measures, Israel is in contravention with basic humanitarian law. People have a right to live freely in their homes without fear of eviction and all people should be able to worship and have free access to their holy sites. Unfortunately, however, when it comes to Israel and its policies towards the Palestinians, what should be deemed grave violations of human rights are portrayed as “security considerations” in a land where irony, double standards and rampant racist ideologies run deep.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Programme at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She could be contacted at mip@miftah.org

 
 
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