The Judaization of Jerusalem

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

The question of the Judaization of Jerusalem occupies a prominent place in Arab and Islamic media, and receives a great many statements from officials and state leaders, on the grounds that the city is holy and that its future preoccupies all who are jealous for the Islamic and Christian holy sites. A conference was recently held in Doha on this subject, and another in Beirut, and both produced statements affirming the Arab character of Jerusalem, the necessity of protecting the holy places, and defending the historical and civilizational landmarks that distinguish the city.

At the very moment resounding speeches were being launched in defense of Jerusalem against Judaization, Israeli bulldozers were opening new roads in the holy city and leveling ground to build more residential units. Arab bluster was thundering in luxurious halls and salons, while the din of the Israeli bulldozers was accompanied by dust and the roar of trucks hauling building materials. This is a scene repeated year after year, and we can hardly detect any change in its pattern.

Israel’s plans

We often hear from Arab leaders and Arab media about a Zionist conspiracy to Judaize Jerusalem, followed by a stream of denunciation, varying in intensity, sharpness, and volume, directed at Zionism, Israel, and their helpers, without our knowing exactly what the secrets of this conspiracy are. It is well known that conspiracies unfold in secrecy, backstage, behind curtains and under the table — yet no one has noticed Israel Judaizing Jerusalem in secret. Rather, everyone watches Israel’s actions carried out in the open, actions that require no great study or scrutiny. Israel confiscates land and demolishes homes, plans and makes decisions and carries them out in full view of the world, and what it does has been published for many long years in books, magazines, newspapers, and national and party programs.

The process of planning for the city of Jerusalem began in 1918, when the British officer Allenby summoned the engineer William McLean to draw up a plan for organizing the city of Jerusalem, and in 1919 when the Zionist movement asked a town planner named Patrick Geddes to draw up a plan for arranging the city’s various facilities and streets. Plans followed one after another until they reached the conceptual dimension in 1949 — the dimension that takes into account religious, historical, and touristic considerations, which form the basis of the city’s urban development. Plans then continued in succession after Israel declared the city unified following the June 1967 war, and Israeli planning and implementation efforts continue to this day.

The important thing is that Israel’s plans are published and can be accessed in various ways, but it seems the Arab side does not like to read, and prefers to liberate Jerusalem through aerial leaps and speeches whose headlines and content repeat themselves. Israel’s plans are clear regarding the Old City and its surroundings, and they lay out details for residential areas, streets, tourist sites, public institutions, markets, parks, parking lots, hotels, schools, squares, and so on. They are also clear regarding Arab residential areas, and the immediate surroundings of the Old City, including the Islamic cemetery and Silwan. That is, they leave nothing for the media to turn into news that had not already been disclosed beforehand.

Provoking the Arabs through the media

Although the Israeli plans are published and detailed, signs of provocation do not appear on Palestinian and Arab leaderships except when Israeli and Western media speak of the implementation of new projects in the holy city. For example, it is clear that Israel had drawn up plans long ago to demolish the homes of the town of Silwan, but Palestinian and Arab movement did not appear until the actual moment the Israeli bulldozers went to work. The same is true of Jabal Abu Ghneim [Har Homa], which had appeared in the plans as a Jewish settlement neighborhood, but the leaders’ affection for it did not appear until after Israel began leveling it for settlement construction.

The impact of this media dimension becomes apparent when an observer looks at the residential units being built quietly, without noise, in the many settlements scattered across the West Bank. These units do not stir Arab and Palestinian leaders, nor Arab and Palestinian media, and receive no attention whatsoever at any local or Arab level, even though they are plainly visible and passersby watch them rise day after day. This leads us to ask: what could possibly have provoked the leaders if Israel had simply gone ahead and implemented all its plans without speaking of them in the media? My assessment is that calm would have prevailed, and no one would have felt the tragedy except the person who finds himself in the scoop of an Israeli bulldozer, being cast off far from his demolished home.

And if this assessment is not mistaken, then Arab and Palestinian leaders move to defend Jerusalem only out of embarrassment, not out of any drive for serious work to save the city. Otherwise, why do we hear no outcry except after Israel begins an implementation operation covered by the media?

The Arab plans

Arab activity concerning the city of East Jerusalem has, since 1948, centered on the following matters:

During the period of Jordanian presence, the Jerusalem municipality developed two urban plans for East Jerusalem in 1962 and 1965, in which residential and industrial areas and other matters were designated, but the city fell into Israel’s hands in 1967.

[Many resolutions] have been issued by the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council calling on Israel not to alter the features of the holy city and to halt the measures it is taking in this regard. Israel has continued implementing its plans in full view of the world, and the Arabs still insist on going to the United Nations. The President of the Palestinian Authority recently expressed his intention of going to the international body in order to stop the Judaization of Jerusalem.

The Arabs tried to implement housing projects in East Jerusalem after 1967, such as the Nusseibeh project, but this generally did not continue because of Israeli measures and its siege of Arab housing.

Arab efforts have largely concentrated on expressions of condemnation and denunciation of the Judaizing measures Israel undertakes, and on allocating funds to support the people of Jerusalem in various ways. Some of this money has indeed arrived, and some of it has been invested properly.

Arab security and Israeli security

Alongside its Judaizing measures, Israel has worked to place the Arab individual in a state of insecurity on various economic, urban, and physical levels. It has imposed taxes on people whose levels bear no relation to Arab income levels, and has squeezed them economically so that they join the Israeli labor market, thereby raising their dependence on Israel for their daily bread, and tying the economic future of their children to Israel. It has worked to prevent them from renovating their homes, and has set strict rules for construction activity, whether adding rooms to existing dwellings or building new ones. It has not hesitated to demolish their homes, whether licensed since the Jordanian era or unlicensed by the Jerusalem municipality that carries out the occupation’s policy. It has also pursued people for political and security reasons, administratively and security-detaining many, tightening inspection procedures and spreading an atmosphere of terror and intimidation.

Israel is continuously concerned with keeping the Arab in a state of insecurity so that he will leave, and indeed many have left, outside Jerusalem and outside Palestine. Thousands of people could not bear the constant pressure and preferred to move to areas within the West Bank, while thousands of others managed to obtain immigration visas to Western countries.

By contrast, Israel works continuously to provide security for the Jew, in order to encourage him to live in Jerusalem, in both its eastern and western halves, and to remain there without any thought of leaving. To this end it has continuously worked to provide jobs and employment for everyone of working age, has provided them with housing in the settlements it builds under very easy conditions, and has surrounded them with every kind of guard and security apparatus, both human and electronic.

This matter is the crux of Israel’s continued encroachment and the Arabs’ failure. Israel has understood the security equation, and has undermined it for the Arabs while zealously guarding it for the Jews, while the Arabs imagined that the people of Jerusalem could find rest under occupation without resistance, and so refrained entirely from doing anything that would place the Jew in a state of tension and doubt that would discourage him from living in Jerusalem. The Arabs imagined that the solution to the problems of Jerusalem’s people was financial, and did not realize that money can easily be drained away, flowing into the Israeli treasury through Israeli financial and tax measures. Arab money has helped the people of Jerusalem to some degree, but it has also helped the Israeli treasury.

National commitment

It was important to strengthen the national spirit among the people of Jerusalem by raising the levels of belonging and loyalty, and raising the degree of awareness of what individuals and groups must do in order to wage economic resistance, reject attempts at normalization, and confront Judaizing measures by every means. This does not mean the people of Jerusalem are not patriotic, but it means that programs of national reinforcement must remain a constant presence, sustained by the Liberation Organization and the Palestinian factions, in order to raise the Arab’s sense of security and lower the Jew’s. In other words, it is necessary to adopt Arab policies entirely opposite to Israel’s security policies.

It is regrettable that the focus on money has stirred up certain souls, teaching them financial corruption and doing harm to the people of Jerusalem and to the cause of Jerusalem, and it is also regrettable that some leaderships who are supposed to defend Jerusalem instead recognize Israel and normalize relations with it, setting a bad national example for people. National conditions have deteriorated to the point that many people have come to regret the sacrifices they made, and to shy away from behaviors that serve the national cause.

Jerusalem is not preserved by money, but by people. If people are prepared nationally, psychologically, and ideologically, then money will empower them and reinforce their positions; if they are not so prepared, then all the money on earth will be of no use. Causes disappear when the human being disappears, and live when he lives. It is no longer hidden from most Palestinians that the goal of the enemies, and of those Arabs and Palestinians allied with them, has centered on subduing the Palestinian human being, and turning him into a mere consuming creature, indifferent to the meaning of human existence.

Chasing after a mirage

With this collapsing spirit, and the inability of Arabs and Palestinians to confront Israel in the manner it understands, the Judaization of Jerusalem will continue, with not the slightest regard for Arab conferences and their statements, and the President of the Palestinian Authority will find nothing before him but to run to the United Nations and appeal to the Arabs to visit Jerusalem with an Israeli permit and pray there under Israel’s spears. He will then have to seek out a religious ruling for them on whether a single prayer-cycle performed in al-Aqsa with the enemy’s permission and under its spears is equal to five hundred prayer-cycles.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “تهويد القدس” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.