Sunrise and City of Nations

The work of a Madrich or Counselor knows no boundaries of time. The week that the students came back from a short stay in Oxford and London, my job began one day at 4am. It was an ER call. Nothing serious, thankfully, but the ride back from the hospital took me under a firey sky. I decided it wasn't worthwhile to sleep through such beauty, so I went to the roof of my hostel and enjoyed the beginning of the day...

Pictures of Sunrise



On Friday, myself, the other Madrichim and my roomate from Muhlenberg, Jon, tried out a tour before offering it the general Kivunim group. It's called Ir Amim, or City of Nations, and it offers information on the current geopolitical situation in East Jerusalem. It's motto is "For an Equitable and Stable Jerusalem with an Agreed Political Future."


Pictures from Ir Amim Tour


On our way to the first site, our guide provided some background information on the demography of Jerusalem, and the purpose of Ir Amim:


There are about 800,000 residents of Jerusalem. 275-280,000 of them, about 35% of the population, are East Jerusalem residents. There are also about 200,000 Israeli Jews living in East Jerusalem. East Jerusalemite Arabs are permanent residents of Jerusalem, and can vote in municipality elections, but CANNOT vote in parliamentarian elections. They also have a unique identity card, granting them access to the West Bank.


On of Israel's biggest infrastructural projects is the construction of the Separation Fence/Wall/Barrier, amounting to more than 700km of separation (500 of the 700km have been built, but the process has slowed. Between '07-'10, only 40km have been built). Begun in 2002, the project separates the West Bank from Israeli proper, from the Gilboa Mountains and Jenin to Hebron. In 1995, a fence was constructed surrounding Gaza. This was built ON the green line, but other projects have not been as accurate. About 80% of the West Bank fence is built OVER the Green Line. The most problematic of areas, of course, is Jerusalem, known as the "Jerusalem Envelope." Since Israel annexed East Jerusalem, demonstrating the victory of the '67 war and making it a "united city," There is no fence on the Green Line in Jerusalem. Instead, there is a Blue Line, indicating a municipal boundary of the city.


At teach site, the guide analyzed the area, neighborhood, or wall from three perspectives:
1) Security- the explicit purpose of the fence
2) Political- implications, solutions
3) Humanitarian- impact on daily life


We began on the southern edge of Jerusalem, in a neighborhood called Gilo. Unknown today, Gilo is beyond the Green Line, and therefore a Jewish Settlement in the West Bank. However, the Separation Barrier is further south, closer to Bethlehem. 

Gilo
1. Security- touch sensitive fence, very secure; multiple accounts of suicide bombers coming from this area before the fence was constructed; PA has been very effective in security as well

2. Political- essentially separates a completely Palestinian city, Bethlehem, from an Israeli area in Gilo; No effect on possibility of solution. It can be taken down or kept.

Part of the Clinto Status Quo plan, where Jewish areas would become part of Israel and Arab areas Palestine.

3. Humanitarian- daily life in Bethlehem is supported by the municipality; little impact aside for some olive trees that were cut off from Arab owners by the fence (Ir Amim has fought to grant Arabs access to their fields) and moral.

From the southern edge of Gilo, we looked out across the valley, at the Israeli tunnel road to Gush Etzion, a bloc of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The tunnel road is only open to Israelis.

Har Homa

Built in 1996, Har Gilo is an Israeli settlement with a population of 20,000, built two kilometers from Jerusalem. Why? Among other reasons, maintain the status quo agreement of a Jewish Jerusalem. Har Homa doesn't provide any advantages to security, but splits Palestinian neighborhoods from the West Bank, such as...

Tsur Bahr
Since the '67 war, Israel has included Tsur Bahr within its municipal boundary of Jerusalem. However, driving through the neighborhood is extremely nauseating, with narrow turns and no sidewalk. The city hasn't invested in street repairs. Furthermore, according to Israeli law, all students up to age 16 must attend school, even for free. Yet there are not enough schools and classrooms for the students in the East Jerusalem. On the other hand (and probably as a consequence to this neglect) some East Jerusalem neighborhoods, like Tsur Bahr maintain a Palestinian identity, and don't recognize Israel. There are still graffiti tags of Yassir Arafat on the walls there. Furthermore, with the limited educational resources provided by Israel, children there are still getting an education, but it's probably not one that Israel would approve of...



Jabl Mukabr
Located next to Armon Hanatziv and the Promenade lookout, this neighborhood illustrated the hypocritical behavior of the Jerusalem municipality with regards to construction. As you can see in the video, there is a beautiful new housing development sprouting up with six-story buildings, called Nof Zion. This was a recent purchase by a Jewish Israeli. Meanwhile, surrounding the new structure are smaller, and less impressive builidings. I don't remember is a building permit is required for all construction or just buildings over three stories high, but regardless, East Jerusalem residents rarely get approval. Therefore, lots of buildings are illegally built and are consequently bulldozed.

Abu Dis
This is a neighborhood located near the Old City, where Israel essentially build a wall through it. The wall is extremely effective, but there is no checkpoint, and residents therefore cannot cross over easily. This makes for a very difficult situation. Not only is there a physical challenge of communication; real estate prices skyrocketed on the Jerusalem side, forcing poorer Arabs out of the neighborhoods. There are now situations where Arabs are buying homes in religious Jewish neighborhood outside of the center of the city, because the land is cheaper.

The tour concluded on Mount Scopus, where I studied two years before. There is an enormous sector of land called E-1 that Israel would be building on right now if not for American pressure in opposition. Building in E-1 would split the entire West Bank into two.

The tour was very informative, but brought up many more questions than there was time to answer. Ir Amim has done lots of research, and their site has reports, as well as maps of municipal lines and other territories. The fear that the guide left the group with, though was that Jerusalem was teetering on the edge of another Intifada. Only this one would be worse because unllike previous Arab revolts that came from the West Bank, this revolt will likely come from the angry and mistreated