Jerusalem's borders are being redrawn
Arnon Regular
Haaretz, December 3, 2003
"People here have lost all interest in what's
happening around them. Nobody explains to anyone what is going to happen and what the situation will be like tomorrow," said Jihad Abu Znaid, a Fatah field leader in the Shuafat refugee camp northeast of Jerusalem.
Like others in the camp, Abu Znaid watched this week as Defense Ministry surveyors showed up every day to the area and marked off the route of the separation fence in northeast Jerusalem.
According to various assessments, this part of the
fence - including the Shuafat and Anata refugee
camps, the A-Salam neighborhood, part of the
village of Hizma, and northwest from there, the
neighborhoods of Dahiyat Albarid, A-Ram and
Samiramis - will be done by next year.
The fence will completely change the lives of
more than 100,000 people who live in northeast
Jerusalem. Some 70 percent of them have blue ID
cards identifying them as residents of Jerusalem, though they are not Israeli citizens. The rest are West Bankers living in those neighborhoods.
The fence planners invested a lot of thought and
creativity into drawing a winding line for the
fence that has no urban logic, cutting off the
Arab neighborhoods and the refugee camps from
the center of their lives in Jerusalem.
After the fence is complete, they will have to
display their identity cards at new checkpoints
or passageways to reach the city and their very
residence as Jerusalemites could be canceled de
facto by future Israeli government decisions.
In effect, the city's municipal boundaries will
change because of the fence and if the Palestinian lives outside the fence, it is likely his or her Jerusalem residency could be canceled.
For the last three years, very few city services, except education, have been provided to the residents of those areas. City officials, Bezeq, Mekorot, and other government ministries have ceased providing service there.
In recent weeks, American officials who met with
the residents passed on information known to them about the route of the fence, and there have been some Israeli officials who have deigned to provide information. Some initial expropriation orders have also been issued.
While the neighborhoods populated by Arabs have
been de facto removed from Jerusalem municipal
jurisdiction, new land has been annexed to Jewish neighborhoods that will remain inside the municipal boundaries, as reserves for future growth. Thus, while Shuafat and Anata have been designated as being outside the fence, north of those two neighborhoods, swaths of land have been designated for annexation to Pisgat Ze'ev and Neveh Yaacov.
Theoretically, the 13,000 residents of Shuafat will be able to reach the center of Jerusalem but that passage will be conditional as soon as the fence is built. They will have to present a Jerusalem ID card and, in effect, the fence will give any Israeli official the authority to claim that the neighborhoods are outside the Jerusalem borders and therefore no services need be provided to the Arab Jerusalemite who lives outside the fence. A camp resident who
travels to Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus
nowadays in five minutes, or needs 10 to reach
the industrial zones of East Jerusalem to get
to work, will need much more time to get through checkpoints - if their residency permits aren't stripped.
Some 10,000 residents of Shuafat have Jerusalem
identity cards. Others are in the process of family reunification, which will win them such IDs. There are some 4,000 Anata residents in the same situation. Many receive National Insurance Institute allotments as their main or only income and since the intifada many have not been working, after losing their jobs. Some 60 percent of the Anata residents are refugees from the Hebron area and the rest are from inside the Green Line. The camp is one of the poorest neighborhoods in Jerusalem and the fence will essentially cut them off from the
capital.
North of that neighborhood is Hizma, where few of the residents have blue Jerusalem ID cards and north of Hizma is an open area slated for Neveh Yaacov's expansion.
In effect, the fence in this area and its link to Wadi Kelt to the east, overlooking Jericho, will cut off the northern part of the West Bank from the southern part. Passage from north to south will only be possible with Israeli permits.
One neighborhood that will find its situation
improved is Isawiye, between the Jerusalem to
Ma'aleh Adumim road in the north, French Hill
in the west and the Hebrew University campus in
the south. Large parts of the land around Isawiye belong to the university, and that alone meant the fence won't cut Isawiye off from the city and it will remain part of Jerusalem.
According to Abu Znaid, the despair in Shuafat has turned into total apathy about the future because the residents understand there is nothing they can do to stop the fence. Those with the means are buying land in neighborhoods that so far do not appear to be endangered by the fence, like A-Tur, Wadi Joz, and those parts of Shuafat closer to Jerusalem.
A., a real estate broker, says the prices have risen in those neighborhoods by 50 percent or more as a result. He named a number of Palestinians identified with the Palestinian struggle who have begun buying property in neighborhoods like Beit Safafa, deep inside the Jewish part of West Jerusalem, where they need not fear they'll lose their status as Jerusalemites.
