More alarming inhumane events were added last week to Israel’s atrocities perpetrated in the occupied Palestinian territories. On Thursday (May 10) morning, a 7-month fetus was killed in the womb of his mother who was shot by the Israeli occupation army in Nablus. In Arab East Jerusalem, the Israeli municipality ordered the tearing down of a care center for Palestinian children. During the early morning hours, under the protection of Israel’s notorious border police, Israeli bulldozers destroyed a home used as a residence for handicapped children. The children were forced out of the building at 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday (May 9), and the bulldozers razed it.
In the meantime, the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem has approved the construction of at least three more Jewish settlements in Arab East Jerusalem. 20,000 apartments with complete infrastructure planned for exclusively Jewish use have been approved by the municipality for construction on Palestinian land in Arab East Jerusalem.
This is also happening at a time when the World Bank has issued a report holding Israel responsible for preventing the rehabilitation of the Palestinian economy. One should not be surprised by the World Bank’s conclusion, particularly as the Israeli occupiers who have destroyed the Palestinian economy in the first place cannot but prevent its rehabilitation.
Israel and its public are at loss at what they ought to do in and with Jerusalem. Latest population figures issued by the Israeli Bureau of Statistics stated that the population of Jerusalem to be around 720,000 — 245,000 (Arabs) Palestinians and 475,000 Jews. Those figures are not accurate, because the Israeli Bureau of Statistics only counts Palestinians residing inside the Israeli-defined municipal borders, and does not count the population of scores of other Palestinian neighborhoods in the immediate vicinity of Arab East Jerusalem, which are not included in the municipal borders, but are traditionally part and parcel of Arab East Jerusalem.
Also, according to recent Israeli statistics, the growth rate of the Palestinian population in Arab East Jerusalem is twice that of the Jews in the city. This known fact has been sending shock waves into Israel’s spine, fearing the Palestinian population will eventually exceed Israeli Jews, not just in Jerusalem, but throughout the land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. The Palestinian demographic threat is being taken very seriously by Israel, and all Israeli brutal countermeasures against the Palestinian people are calculated, and deliberately designed to serve their faltering designs to rid the Palestinian land of its indigenous Palestinian rightful owners.
Another fear Israel is harboring is the developing one-state solution for both peoples, a state for all its citizens. Should the Palestinian population exceed that of Jews in the not too distant future, Israel will have to face the stark choice between a binational state, or an apartheid South Africa style state.
Knowing very well that an apartheid state no longer has a market or a status in our contemporary world, the only option left is the binational state.
As far as Israel is concerned, this option is a nonstarter; hence the unilateral disengagement concept. The disengagement plan, perceived and implemented by then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was formulated in order to provide the solution for the Israeli dilemma. On the one hand, the unilateral disengagement will allow Israel to withdraw its forces from densely populated areas in the West Bank similar to what has happened in Gaza. On the other, Israel will allow itself to keep under its rule, large swathes of sparsely populated Palestinian land, including the West Bank’s mountain ridge area, under which exists the richest West Bank water aquifers.
Israel does not mind giving some kind of authority to Palestinians to govern themselves on the land Israel chooses to withdraw from. Should they wish, the Palestinians can call their self-governing authority an empire.
Israel’s unilateral withdrawal experience from Gaza, however, did not produce the desired results. And the situation in Gaza deteriorated quickly. The fact of the matter is that chaos, poverty, and desperation in the occupied Palestinian territories do not translate into good things for Israel. On the contrary, despite the immense difficulties the Palestinian people are facing, they are all steadfast in their demand for the full restoration of their rights on their land in accordance with UN resolutions.
The Arab peace initiative opened a window of opportunity for Israel, the Palestinian people, and the Arab world. Israel’s reluctance, so far, to respond positively to this initiative means Israel has not learned anything from the past. The futility of its years-long incursions of its occupation forces into Palestinian cities, towns and villages, are clear for everyone to see. Israel has imprisoned hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, destroyed thousands of Palestinian homes, killed and injured tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children, and did not succeed. Boogie Yaalon, Israel’s chief of staff during the premiership of Ariel Sharon, promised to sear fear in the minds of the Palestinian people. This also did not succeed.
Israel ought to know that after almost 100 years of struggle, the Palestinian people did not tire, and have the stamina, the courage, and the determination to endure and not to give up until an independent Palestinian state is established on the Palestinian land occupied by Israel since June 1967, with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital, and an agreed upon just resolution for the Palestinian refugees is found.
In addition to the Arab peace initiative, the Arab world can help the Palestinian people with money. In Jerusalem, rich American Jews are injecting hundreds of millions of US dollars into Jewish settler groups.
The Palestinian people, particularly in Jerusalem, need rich Arabs to help them build their city. Schools for children, and homes for the tens of thousands of young couples intending to wed — money is needed to work the land and build it, to preserve it and to protect it from being taken by others.
After 40 years of occupation, Israel did not succeed in implementing its grand designs, and many Israelis are rethinking their strategy. Many are realizing the big mistake of continuing the occupation, and urging their government to end it.
The latest plans approved by the Jerusalem municipality to build three more Jewish settlements in Arab East Jerusalem, can be viewed as a last-ditch effort by die-hard right— wing Jews to destroy any prospects for a peaceful solution with the Palestinian people and the Arab world. If the government of Ehud Olmert does not put a cap on these plans very soon, it will put the last nail in the coffin of any peaceful resolution with Israel forever.
