Editor: Meir Margalit

Publisher: IPCC Jerusalem, 2006

ISBN: 965-7283-08-6

In-depth research is hardly needed to prove the adverse discrimination meted out to East Jerusalem. A walk through its streets suffices to demonstrate how badly deprived that part of the city is, especilly compared to the western sector. Yet while every alleyway cries deliberate neglect, things should, indeed must, be placed in empirical proportion so as to arrive at an understanding of the dimensions of the phenomenon, the motives that produced it and its implications.

The discrimination suffered by the residents of East Jerusalem results from the concerted action of a number of State authorities, most outstanding of which are the Ministry of the Interior, the Israel Police, the National Insurance Institute, the Labor Exchange and, of course, the Municipality. Each of these systems does its bit to keep East Jerusalem down, and all are party to its systematic deprivation. This publication will focus on the role of the municipal apparatus, which is the repository of very extensive powers and can largely determine what standard of living a Jerusalem resident will be vouchsafed.

The adverse discrimination applied to East Jerusalem finds expression in the two systems wholly controlled by the Jerusalem Municipality. These are spatial distribution, namely the allocation of lands for residential purposes, and the provision of a diverse range of municipal services channeled from the State via the local authority. By means of these two control mechanisms, the Municipality demarcates the resident’s living space and determines the standard of living they may enjoy. The first allocates them a fixed amount of living space while the second shapes their quality of life. The first pins them down to a limited physical area, while the second asserts their inferior status. Because let there be no mistake – in the western city, the allocation of budgetary resources and lands is a service the Municipality is obligated to provide its residents. In East Jerusalem, on the other hand, far from being a service, it is a tool in the hands of the authorities to intensify Israeli control. The Municipality uses it to send its residents a message as to who is master and who subject, and to remind them of their place within the urban order of priorities. The neglect prevailing throughout the east of the city: the potholed roads, the piles of garbage, and the substandard classrooms; all are first and foremost, above all, symbols designed to etch residents consciousness. The fact that they are sub-tenants, possessing only minimal rights, residing in a city under the aegis of a Jewish power that gives or takes away at its pleasure. Their every trip to the west of the city designed to hammer home the fact of their inferiority status, and that as a very lowly resident, they owe a duty of obedience to the governing system. Hence, in East Jerusalem, the allocation of municipal resources, rather than being a service to residents, becomes a tool for oppressing their national spirit. Palestinian residents do not get to know the Municipality’s “service” aspect but only its “enforcement” aspect. Their every contact with the municipal apparatus is one of “Know before whom you stand”1. Unless we realize this, there can be no explanation for the fervor with which the Jerusalem Municipality demolishes ‘illegal’ houses in the east of the city. The urge to invest NIS 2.5 million of the municipality’s depleted budget on house demolition, (not including either payment to inspectors, or the cost of the aerial photographs used to spot unlawful construction in places with difficult access to motor vehicles), on hillsides where no Jew ever set foot; stems from the imaginary danger posed by Palestinians rebelling against the urban sovereignty and going ahead with their own agenda without a municipal permit. A Palestinian building without permission is attacking the very foundations of Jewish rule in East Jerusalem. Two hundred and fifty houses were destroyed in 2004 and 2005 in the name of the power struggle. It is only in this context that we can understand what hides behind the remarks of the municipal construction supervision director, that the battle against illegal construction is “the real battle over Jerusalem”. Only then does the fervor of senior municipal officials militating for more and more house demolitions in order to restore Israeli control over East Jerusalem become meaningful.