When it comes to the final leg of the ailing peace negotiations, both Palestinians and Israelis know that East Jerusalem will represent the biggest and most convoluted challenge. And when and if both sides reach that penultimate stage, the fate of the city, occupied in 1967 and annexed soon after, will be decided on demographics, pure and simple.
The Kadima-led coalition government in Israel has accepted in principle the creation of Palestinian state on parts of the West Bank and in Gaza. This is the core of the two-state solution, backed by the United States and supported by the rest of the world, as a prelude to ending the Arab-Israeli conflict. But Jerusalem, as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni outlined few weeks ago, is a red line which no Israeli will dare cross. It is there that the peace train will come to a halt and it is over the fate of the old city and its surrounding Arab neighborhoods that the negotiators will hit the proverbial brick wall.
Israel has consistently played the demographic card in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem in particular from the onset of its occupation. Almost immediately it began building a necklace of Jewish settlements that encircled the city cutting it off the rest of Palestinian territories. In addition, it executed a policy of indirect ethnic cleansing that drove many of the city’s Arab population out as a result of economic and social privation.
Today Arabs make up just about half of the population of East Jerusalem, which includes the walled (old) city, roughly 1 sq. km in area, and about 70 sq. km of West Bank territories incorporated by Israel into the Greater Jerusalem Municipality. In that enclave live 260,000 Palestinians and about 200,000 Israeli settlers. Tilting that demographic balance in Israel’s favor has been paramount in the larger goal of Judaizing the city and isolating it, through huge settlement blocs, from the rest of the West Bank. While Israel expanded settlements, confiscated Arab lands and extended the barrier wall, the municipality consistently denied the Arab population building permits. Those who challenged the municipality’s authority had their homes demolished.
Settlement expansion, annulment of residency rights to Arabs, social and economic pressures and housing shortages have slowly eroded Palestinian presence in the city and helped boost Jewish numbers. The recent spate of settlement activities in the old city and the surrounding areas are meant to turn Arab population into a minority.
Creating a new demographic reality in Jerusalem, in addition to isolating the city from the rest of the West Bank, will go on regardless of developments in the ongoing peace talks. For Israel, united Jerusalem will never be divided and any agreement will have to exclude the city and its environs.
The PNA can only protest Israeli actions. Neither the international community nor the Arabs can do much to reverse or stop Israeli actions. The fact that the entire peace process might be derailed as a result of the Jerusalem question does not seem to bother the United States or Israel. The fact that the PNA has failed to make Jerusalem a make- or-break issue in its negotiations with Israel until now may have contributed to the recent Israeli drive to escalate settlement activities in East Jerusalem.
The Israeli position, although it was never clearly outlined, suggests that while Palestinians may have symbolic supervision over Muslim and Christian holy places in the old city, they will never have jurisdiction.
Today Jordan, which had severed political and administrative links to the West Bank in 1988, continues to oversee Waqf responsibilities in the old city.
As to the capital of the future Palestinian state, Israel can be bothered less. At one point it was suggested that an Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem can fulfill the Palestinian demand. The closest point to discussing the fate of Arab Jerusalem was in the Taba peace talks in January 2001, but both parties were unable to reach final agreement.
Despite of Israel’s determination to play the demographic card, its efforts have not all been successful. Earlier this decade, the Israeli population in East Jerusalem increased only 1.95 percent between 2000 and 2002, reflecting a loss of population in neighboring Jewish settlements due to economic hardships. On the other hand, the Palestinian population in East Jerusalem increased 6.78 percent over the same period, according to Israeli statistical sources. One reason for this is the annexation of West Bank territory to greater Jerusalem.
One of the biggest challenges for Palestinians and Arabs, and indeed Muslims all over the world, in the coming years will be to lend their support to the city’s Arab inhabitants. Such backing will have to come in the form of generous economic aid and investments to prevent Arab residents from leaving.
All Jerusalem-related funds, councils and organizations have failed to rise up to the current Israeli onslaught. The demographic element in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the most important and it is haunting Israelis who see the unchecked growth of Arabs in Israel and the occupied territories as the biggest obstacle to their designs and a future threat to the purity of the Jewish state.
The battle for Jerusalem is a silent one that is characterized by transient outbursts of new settlements that continue to choke Arab residents. It is unfortunate that Arabs have not capitalized on the fact that demography is a double-edged sword. Israel will build thousands of apartments in East Jerusalem and will confiscate hundreds of dunums, but as long as the city’s indigenous population holds on, the Israeli plan will stumble.
— Osama Al Sharif is a veteran journalist based in Jordan.
