(Mint Press)–Sunday marked the 45th celebration of Jerusalem Day, a public holiday in Israel that celebrates the unification of the holy city during the 1967 war. While International Law stipulates that East Jerusalem is an occupied Palestinian territory, continued evictions of the city’s Palestinian residents have decreased the likelihood of a partition resulting in a viable two-state solution.
Al Nakba: 64 years later
The fate of Jerusalem is part of a broader set of unresolved issues surrounding the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While the unification and subsequent occupation of East Jerusalem is a contentious issues, the history of Israel’s creation in 1948 still serves as a flashpoint between the two peoples.
On May 14, Palestinians gathered to protest and publicly mourn Al-Nakba (The Catastrophe). The day for Jewish Israelis represents the independence of their nation. However, for Palestinians the day is one of public mourning to remember the events of 1948. Palestinians claim some 150 towns and villages were destroyed, forcing 700,000 native residents to flee their homes.
These contested historical events are some of the most inflammatory in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, prompting annual clashes and demonstrations across Israel and the occupied territories.
On Monday, a Nakba Day demonstration at Tel Aviv University drew significant condemnation from elected officials, with Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar calling the event “outrageous”. Reporting on the event, +972 reporter Mairav Zonszein writes, “The ceremony was organized by students – both Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel – and billed as a joint memorial ceremony aimed at giving voice to the Palestinian narrative of suffering following the events of 1948. Organizers emphasized that the event did not seek to reject Israel’s right to exist.”
Several hundred counter demonstrators tried to disrupt the event and although there were numerous verbal clashes, no injuries were reported at the event. Three people were arrested.
On Wednesday, the right-wing Yisrael Beiteunu party introduced a bill in the Knesset that would limit government funding to universities that allow Nakba day protests on campus. This continues earlier government attempts to produce a single national narrative.
On March 23, 2011 the Israeli Knesset voted to give the finance minister the ability to limit funding to non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) that organize Nakba day protests.
The controversial events surrounding Nakba commemorations at Tel Aviv University carried over into Sunday’s Jerusalem Day celebrations.
One city, two capitals
On the celebration of the unification of the holy city under Israeli control, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu restated his commitment to keeping the whole of Jerusalem under Israeli control. Frequently invoking the expansionist biblical view of Israel, Netanyahu has spoken of the city previously as, “the eternal, indivisible capital of the Jewish state.”
However, Palestinians claiming East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state cite UN resolution 242 adopted shortly after the annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967. This international law declares East Jerusalem to be occupied Palestinian territory.
However, a number of moderate Jewish Israelis are calling for the partition of Jerusalem as part of a two-state solution. Speaking on Jerusalem Day, Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert urged Israeli leaders to relinquish the idea of maintaining a unified Jerusalem. Olmert continued, telling Maariv Daily, “No Israeli government since 1967 has done even a smidgen of what was needed in order to unify the city in practical terms. That is a tragedy that is going to lead us, for want of another choice, to making inevitable political concessions.”
The talk of division is unprecedented for a high level Israeli leader. East Jerusalem has about 280,000 Palestinian residents, compared to the growing number of Jewish residents, which currently stands at about 200,000. According to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD), a citizen advocacy group, Israel has demolished some 18,000 Palestinian homes in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem since 1967. Commenting on the extensive history of house demolitions, ICAHD contends, “Ninety-five percent of these houses belong to innocent people and families and have nothing to do with terrorism or security; they are not charged with crimes nor detained as security risks.”
Although the practice of house demolition was formally outlawed by Israeli courts in 2005, evictions still persist, further diminishing the Palestinian presence in the city. At the end of last month, Israeli courts upheld an eviction order of 13 Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem’s Beit Hanina neighborhood, clearing the way for Jewish residents to begin living in the traditionally Arab section of the city.
As state sanctioned evictions continue, Israeli human rights group B’tselem is also concerned about the rise in unprosecuted cases of settler violence against Palestinians living in the West Bank.
Continued annexation and the rise of settler violence
On Saturday, approximately 50 Israeli settlers from Bat Ayin attacked Palestinians with stones, injuring two. Elsewhere in the West Bank, eyewitnesses reported dozens of Palestinian olive trees and grape vines uprooted by settlers living near the Palestinian village of Beit Omar. In an unrelated event graffiti declaring, “Death to Arabs” was spotted, according to reports covered by Agence France Presse.
The influx of Jewish settlers to the West Bank began following the Israeli annexation of the land from Jordan during the 1967 war. Shortly thereafter, conservative Israelis adhering to the messianic Gush Emunim (bloc of the faithful) movement began to populate the West Bank, the same land that Palestinians claim, along with Gaza and East Jerusalem, as the area for their future state.
While numbers have been disputed, some 700,000 Israeli settlers live beyond the Green Line in the Golan Heights, West Bank and East Jerusalem according to data obtained from the Israeli Interior Ministry. Despite the unilateral evacuation of Israeli settlements in Gaza in 2005, the expansion of West Bank settlements has continued virtually unabated, save for a brief 10-month moratorium during peace negotiations in 2009-2010.
Virtually unchecked settler violence against Palestinians has risen with the increased population, straining an already tenuous relationship. Citing figures from B’tselem, Israeli author Neve Gordon writes in his book, Israel’s Occupation, “In the fourteen-year period between 1987 and 2001, 124 Palestinians, among them 23 minors, were killed by Jewish settlers and other Israeli civilians. In addition, the settlers have injured hundreds of Palestinians, burnt mosques, harmed medical teams, attacked journalists, and damaged property in scores of villages.”
Conversely, Israeli authorities cite Hamas rocket attacks against civilians as hindering the advancement of serious peace negotiations. Between 2001 and 2009, 8,600 Hamas rockets were launched, killing 28 Israelis and injuring hundreds more. The rocket attacks by the democratically-elected Hamas government have been described as acts of terrorism by the United Nations, the U.S. and the EU.
In March, more than 200 Qassam rockets landed in Israel, sparking a retaliatory strike that killed 23 Palestinians in Gaza.
Now approaching 20 years since the signing of the Oslo peace accords, Israelis and Palestinians have grown increasingly disillusioned with the peace process and the idea of a negotiated two-state solution. In September 2011, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made a plea to the international community, submitting a bid to the UN for the creation of a Palestinian state based upon pre-1967 borders. Although the effort was thwarted by a U.S. Security Council veto, a growing number of states outside the Arab world have chosen to recognize the legitimacy of a Palestinian state within these borders.