East Jerusalem

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View of Jerusalem's Old City from the Mount of Olives
Map of East Jerusalem (click for an explanation of the colors)
Greater Jerusalem, May 2006 ( CIA )
Wall in Jerusalem
East Jerusalem in October 2015
View on the village of Silwan from the old town of

As East Jerusalem , the part of Jerusalem called that since the Palestine war of 1948 Jordan was occupied until the Six Day War in 1967 conquered by Israel. From the Israeli point of view, East Jerusalem is now part of the united Jerusalem, including the parts of the West Bank that Israel declared to be the Jerusalem urban area. The annexation of the area conquered in the Six Day War in 1967 by the Jerusalem Law was just as little recognized by the international community as the previous annexation of East Jerusalem by Jordan in 1950The United Nations Security Council passed several resolutions condemning the annexation or its preparation. From a Palestinian point of view, East Jerusalem, and for some Palestinian organizations also all of Jerusalem, is known under the Arabic name al-Quds (القدس al-Quds orالقدس الشريف al-Quds ash-sharīf ; literally known as "the holy [city]" or "the honorable [city]"), the capital of a future Palestinian state.

geography

East Jerusalem encompasses the Old City of Jerusalem and the adjoining districts to the east, including the Mount of Olives made famous by the Bible . East Jerusalem is home to some of the holiest sites of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, including the Western Wall (the western wall of the temple ), the Temple Mount with the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque , and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher . The well-known districts of East Jerusalem include Bab a-Zahara , Sheikh Jarrah and Wadi el-Joz .

politics

The political status of East Jerusalem and the settlement problem remain a central point of the Middle East conflict (Jerusalem question). After the end of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent British administration of Jerusalem, the city was to be placed under international administration. This plan, which had been worked out as part of the UN partition plan of 1947, failed, however, because the Arab-Palestinian side rejected the partition plan across the board and the Israeli side never rated this solution as realistic. In the course of the Palestine War , East Jerusalem was occupied by Jordanian troops , Jewish residents were driven out of the old city, Jewish houses and the Hurva synagogue were destroyed. This war ended with the ceasefire agreement signed in 1949 between Israel on the one hand and Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria on the other . It was agreed with this that Jordan would keep its troops in East Jerusalem. East Jerusalem was later annexed by Jordan in violation of international law. In the Six Day War , East Jerusalem was captured by the Israeli army after previous attacks by Jordan on West Jerusalem . Israel today claims all of Jerusalem, including the eastern districts, as its capital and officially annexed East Jerusalem in 1980 by a Knesset resolution ( Jerusalem Law ). In recent peace negotiations, Israel refused to give up East Jerusalem entirely in favor of a future Palestinian state. This is justified, among other things, with the experiences before 1967, when the Jordanian occupiers denied Jewish people access to the Western Wall and the entire Old City, but also with the fact that Jerusalem was never part of a sovereign state before 1948 and therefore the Palestinians had no legal claim on East Jerusalem. In the eyes of critical observers, the status quo is being reinforced in violation of international law by the ongoing, state-sponsored settlement construction by Israelis in the district, which was predominantly inhabited by Arabs before 1967 . In addition, the barrier that Israel officially built to counter terrorism , which in Jerusalem also has the shape of a wall, increasingly cuts off the West Bank from the Arab part of Jerusalem.

The Palestinians strictly reject Israel's claim to East Jerusalem and insist on control of the entire district, including the Temple Mount . You are referring to various resolutions of the United Nations, which demand the withdrawal of Israel from occupied territories and which have declared the annexation of East Jerusalem by Israel to be contrary to international law. For years, Faisal Husaini was the Jerusalem representative of the PLO in the Orient House and was viewed as the secret mayor of East Jerusalem. After Husaini's death in 2001, the Orienthaus was closed. The President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmud Abbas , has categorically rejected negotiations on a future solution to the administration of East Jerusalem since 2008, as long as Israel is sticking to settlement projects in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. However, since the Fatah-Hamas conflict in 2006, the Palestinians no longer have uniform demands regarding East Jerusalem. In peace negotiations , the autonomous authority controlled by Fatah usually only claims East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, although its charter calls for the “extermination of all economic and political Zionist existence” and “a sovereign state on the soil of all of Palestine, with Jerusalem as the capital” (Article 12 and 13). The radical Islamic Hamas , which was elected by a relative majority of the Palestinians in 2006 and has the majority of the parliamentary seats, does not recognize Israel and demands the establishment of a God-state on the soil of today's Israel with all Jerusalem as its capital. Hamas is financially and ideologically supported by Syria and Iran , which use Jerusalem's concerns for their controversial foreign policy. For example, rallies and memorial days (such as Al-Quds Day ) are held at regular intervals to “remember the goal of liberating Jerusalem”. The leader of the Shiite Hezbollah , Hassan Nasrallah, described Jerusalem as "the great goal and the great battle of our time." In large parts of the Arab-Muslim world, Jerusalem's current status is seen not only as a loss of rights, but also a loss of prestige.

At the end of June 2014, the Israeli government decided to invest 295 million shekels over five years in the infrastructure and security of East Jerusalem.

In the run-up to US President Donald Trump's visit in May, Israel's Building Minister Yoav Galant has announced a new settlement project. This will create 15,000 new apartments for Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem.

Status of the Palestinians

Non-Jewish residents of the areas that Israel conquered during the Six Day War in 1967 and then incorporated into its national territory under constitutional law ( Golan Heights and East Jerusalem) did not automatically become Israeli nationals with this annexation. If you want to obtain Israeli citizenship, you need to be naturalized . Few made use of this option, between 1980 and 1992 only one percent of East Jerusalemites.

The Arab-Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have “permanent residents” status, which allows them to move around within Israel. You get special blue ID cards and are therefore also covered by social security. This status can be withdrawn from them if they stay outside of Jerusalem for several years. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz , one visit in three years is enough to retain the status. As was shown on the occasion of the hunger strike of Firas Maraghy, a Palestinian from Jerusalem, who is supported by broad sections of German politics, in front of the Israeli embassy in Berlin in the summer of 2010, Israel does not adhere to these publicly communicated regulations. Maraghy ​​was told by the Ministry of the Interior in May 2009 that, despite his wife's studies in Germany, he would have to return to East Jerusalem by May 2011 at the latest and then live there for a year and a half in order not to lose his right of residence in his hometown. Many Palestinians have forfeited their right of residence because they B. missed deadlines while studying abroad. Since 1967, 14,000 of these “permanent” residence permits have been withdrawn, most recently also because of terrorist activities by family members.

Many Palestinians prefer Jordanian passports or the passports of the Palestinian Authority . For most of these Palestinians, becoming citizens of Israel would be tantamount to giving up East Jerusalem, especially since it involves taking an oath on Israel. It is similar with the cooperation of the Palestinians with the Israeli authorities. Since many Palestinians do not pay municipal fees or rents for the often only leased residential space, which was often built on without building permits after 1967, the Israelis argue that they have the right to evict such apartments and build new buildings there. According to the Israeli Committee against House Demolition (ICAHD), however, hardly any building permits were issued for Palestinian residents between 1967 and 2003, while 90,000 housing units were created for Jewish settlers in the same period.

The law, which made it possible to reclaim abandoned Jewish property in 1948, repeatedly brought houses in East Jerusalem into the possession of Jews . Our own right-wing organizations research the descendants of former Jewish owners, support them in asserting their claims and then buy the land from them. The houses are then rented to Jewish families, who sometimes have to be protected at great expense. For example, some Jewish residents in the Muslim quarter of the old town have security guards accompany their children on their way to school every day.

The residents without citizenship are not allowed to vote in Israeli elections, only in the election for the Jerusalem municipal council. However, the majority do not do this to show that they do not recognize the occupation. According to the Oslo agreement , however, they are allowed to participate in Palestinian elections, their vote must submit but in post offices, so that Israel can call this postal vote of "expatriate Palestinians". Family reunification does not exist for (non-Israeli) Palestinians in East Jerusalem and in the rest of the Palestinian territories. Visitors and spouses from these areas must seek permission from the Israel Interior Ministry. Such permits have hardly been issued since the Second Intifada , especially since residents of East Jerusalem also carried out attacks. These procedures have often been criticized by human rights organizations. In order not to lose their status as East Jerusalem residents, many remain registered in the city, although they live in their hometown after marrying a Palestinian partner. If possible, the children are also born in a Jerusalem hospital and registered in Jerusalem. Many Palestinian wives have lived with their spouses in East Jerusalem for years, but now, despite the involvement of a lawyer, they are unable to get their residence permits extended. They therefore often continue to live illegally in the city. Since the wall was built and border controls were tightened, they have been traveling with temporary permits for hospital visits and prayer on the Temple Mount.

In recent years, some residents have also lost their right of residence because their houses are not 100% within the city limits. They are obliged to pay the community taxes (Arnona), but lost their status. In one case, a widow's pension was canceled because her husband's bed was outside the city limits.

According to the Jewish human rights organization HaMoked , the number of Palestinians who lost their status as residents of East Jerusalem in 2008 has reached worrying levels. The United Nations and the United States of America have criticized Israeli policy in Jerusalem; This includes the eviction of Palestinians from their homes for whom they cannot provide proof of ownership, the destruction of houses that were built without a building permit , as well as the expansion of Jewish settlements on land that has been occupied since the Six Day War. According to the director of HaMoked, Dalia Kerstein , the actions of the interior ministry are part of a larger campaign to ensure a Jewish majority in Jerusalem and to limit the size of the Palestinian population. Furthermore, according to an internal EU report from 2009, quoted from Haaretz , 35% of the residents of Jerusalem are Arabs , but less than 10% of the money would flow into Arab quarters. In September 2011, the Israeli Ministry of the Interior announced the construction of 1,100 more apartments in the Gilo district, which was criticized not only by the Palestinians, but also by the USA, Russia and the EU foreign affairs representative Catherine Ashton .

An EU report from 2011 shows that around 10,000 children are now living in the city without a right of residence because one of their parents is from the West Bank.

Refund Claims by Jewish Israelis

Both BBC NEWS and I24news and Yedioth Ahronoth report on forced evictions from homes in East Jerusalem, which were inhabited by Palestinians:

"Under Israeli law, if Jews can prove their families lived in east Jerusalem homes before the 1948 War of Independence, they can demand that Israel's general custodian office release the property and return their ownership rights."

"Under Israeli law, Jews have a right to restitution on buildings in East Jerusalem if they can prove that their family lived there until 1948."

"Under Israeli law, Jews can reclaim property lost when Jordan occupied East Jerusalem in the war of 1948-9."

"Under Israeli law, Jews can lay claim to property they lost when Jordan occupied East Jerusalem in the 1948 war."

An Israeli court order was implemented by the Israeli police on September 5, 2017, forcing Arabs to evacuate the buildings they inhabited in East Jerusalem.

On January 2, 2018, the Israeli parliament changed the law to make a possible future division of Jerusalem more difficult. For the abandonment of areas that belong to the eastern part of the Israeli capital, for example as part of a peace agreement with the Palestinians, at least two-thirds of the MPs would have to vote in the future . Before that, a simple majority in the Knesset was enough .

Palestinian infrastructure

In East Jerusalem there are not only holy places for the Palestinians living outside the city (Al-Aqsa Mosque, Church of the Holy Sepulcher), but also central institutions that have evolved over time and are still important contact points for the residents of the West Bank .

These include the six Arab hospitals:

  • Makassed Islamic Charitable Hospital on the Mount of Olives (220 beds, cardiology )
  • Auguste Viktoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives (100 beds)
  • St. John's Eye Hospital in Sheikh Jarrah (70 beds)
  • St. Josef Hospital in Sheikh Jarrah (70 beds, neurosurgery )
  • Maternity hospital of the PRCS (Palestinian Red Crescent ) in Suwaneh (30 beds)
  • Princess Basma Center for disabled children on the Mount of Olives (20 beds, physiotherapy )

Some of these hospitals have specializations that are not available in the autonomous areas. Special treatments are often only possible in Hadassah on Mount Skupus or Ein Kerem in Israel . Some of these hospitals treat people with refugee status free of charge, while in other facilities outside the city they have to pay. Urgent admissions to these hospitals are delayed by controls and permits at the border. A pass must be applied for every time for outpatient treatment. Medical staff and medical students from outside require work permits and permits. Since 2008, hospitals have been banned from buying much cheaper Palestinian medicines. Permits for renovation work and additions were not granted. For 80% of the emergency operations in East Jerusalem, Jewish ambulances demand police protection, as they were previously attacked in the areas where they wanted to help people. This leads to an extension of the transport time.

There are also other Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem:

Electricity company JDECO

Despite the reunification of the city with all adjustments, East Jerusalem still has a separate power supply from the Palestinian electricity company JDECO (Jerusalem District Electricity Co. Ltd.) founded in 1914, which East Jerusalem and its surrounding area independently of the otherwise responsible Israeli company Israel Electric Co. powered. As the many Jewish residents of East Jerusalem insist on being supplied by the more reliable Israeli company, there is more and more dualism, as for the settlements in the West Bank.

District

See also

Web links

Commons : East Jerusalem  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
Wikivoyage: East Jerusalem  Travel Guide

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Including Resolution 267 and Resolution 478 (the US abstained)
  2. ↑ Hamas calls on Abbas to resign ( Memento from March 11, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Areas ( Memento from February 6, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centerat the Center for Special Studies (CSS) ( Memento of 6 March 2012 at the Internet Archive ), October 31 of 2005.
  5. ↑ Cabinet approves plan to tighten Israeli control over East Jerusalem , Haaretz of June 29, 2014.
  6. ^ Israel announces construction of 15,000 apartments in East Jerusalem , Die Presse, April 28, 2017.
  7. ↑ Michael Wolffsohn , Douglas Bokovoy : Israel. Basic knowledge, geography, history, politics, society, economy (1882–1996) , Opladen 1996, ISBN 3-8100-1310-2 , p. 66.
  8. ↑ http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/874161.html
  9. ↑ Support for hunger strike , taz of August 26, 2010.
  10. ↑ Rupert Neudeck : “I don't need any money. I need justice “ , Grünhelme e. V. , August 27, 2010.
  11. ↑ Who are East Jerusalem's 'permanent residents'? , Haaretz from December 9, 2014.
  12. ↑ Without results. What are Abbas and Netanyahu talking about? "Climate of Fear" in the West Bank . young world . September 16, 2010. Retrieved September 17, 2010.
  13. ^ Israeli settlers reject Supreme Court offer to compromise over eviction of Palestinian family , Haaretz, May 20, 2013.
  14. ↑ Like strangers in Jerusalem . German wave . July 1, 2010. Retrieved September 17, 2010.
  15. ^ Israel sanctions East Jerusalem family for straddling Palestinian border , Haaretz, September 27, 2011.
  16. ↑ Israel strips more Palestinians of Jerusalem status ( English ) Reuters . December 2, 2009. Retrieved August 28, 2010.
  17. ^ Israel snubbed allies and angered Palestinians , Zeit Online , September 28, 2011.
  18. ↑ a b EU delegates: Palestine Liberation Organization should return to Jerusalem , Haaretz of January 18, 2012.
  19. ↑ Arab family evicted from east Jerusalem home purchased by Jews , ynetnews.com ( Jedi'ot Acharonot ), September 5, 2017.
  20. ↑ Clashes at Jerusalem house after family evicted, reports say , AFP on i24news , September 8, 2017.
  21. ↑ Israel evicts Palestinians after East Jerusalem legal battle , BBC , September 5 2017th
  22. ↑ Arab family evicted from east Jerusalem home purchased by Jews , ynetnews.com (Jedi'ot Acharonot), September 5, 2017.
  23. ^ Law change in Israel: Parliament makes possible division of Jerusalem more difficult , Focus Online , January 2, 2018; Knesset makes division of Jerusalem more difficult , tagesschau.de , January 2, 2018.
  24. ↑ Progress Report for Health Sector ( Memento from June 4, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  25. ↑ East Jerusalem's hospitals are good, but access to them is limited , Haaretz of February 13, 2012.
  26. ^ Electricity pole sparks tension between Vatican and Jerusalem municipality , Haaretz, May 4, 2012.