Kim Bullimore
While the rest of the world has been distracted by the chaos of the Gaza Disengagement, the Israeli government has quietly sped up the construction of the illegal apartheid wall in East Jerusalem. Under international law, East Jerusalem is recognised as being part of the occupied territories, illegally seized by Israel during the 1967 war.
According to the Palestinian Authority, 55,000 Palestinians — more than a quarter of the 230,000 Palestinians living in occupied East Jerusalem — will be imprisoned behind the wall. This includes those living in Shoafat refugee camp and in the neighbourhoods of Salaam and Dar Khamis. Three-thousand seven-hundred of them are children who will no longer be able to get to school. The Israeli government has announced that it will build a system of services, including new schools and medical clinics, in the imprisoned neighbourhoods to further ensure that Palestinians with Israeli residency or citizenship do not access Greater Jerusalem.
The route of the apartheid wall ensures that more territory located within the Occupied Palestinian Territories is annexed to Israel, while enough Palestinians with Israeli citizenship are locked outside to ensure a Jewish demographic majority.
Since 1995, Israel has pursued a "quiet transfer" policy in East Jerusalem, under which Palestinians with Israeli citizenship have had residency cancelled if they lived away for a period of time or have been unable to prove their continuous residency. Petitions filed by the residents in the areas affected have delayed the completion of the illegal wall for the past year.
From Green Left Weekly, July 27, 2005.
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