Day Six & Seven - Jerusalem

The city of Jerusalem has represented the religious diversity of the world for thousands of years. The Dome of the Rock, The Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Western Wall are amongst the holiest sites for the three world religions. For this reason, Jerusalem was given special treatment in the original partition plan that the UN drew up when Israel was first created in 1948.

Jerusalem was supposed to remain under international control after 1948 but the Zionist forces of course disregarded this restriction and forcibly took control of West Jerusalem. Subsequently, East Jerusalem was designated as the capital of the future independent Palestinian state. Israel has other ideas and has been seeking to annex the whole of Jerusalem including East Jerusalem and the surrounding suburbs.

Israel claims Jerusalem as the 'eternal capital' of the Jewish state (despite Tel Aviv being the capital of Israel under international law). In order for this to be viable, Israeli authorities believe they must first engineer and then maintain a Jewish majority in Jerusalem (including the Palestinian areas in East Jerusalem). To this end, a slow process of ethnic cleansing is under way in East Jerusalem. This involves a pincer effect of settling Israelis in East Jerusalem whilst at the same time forcing Palestinians out.

Israel must, by its definition as an ethnically pure Jewish state, be constantly preoccupied by its demographics. Maintaining a Jewish majority of at least 80% of the population (whilst annexing as much Palestinian land as possible) has become an obsession that trumps any concern for human rights or life. East Jerusalem provides a microcosm of the policies adopted by Israel to achieve this.

Israel, as the occupying power, has authority over East Jerusalem and as such is able to practice its 'aggressive bureaucracy' tactics to the full. Israeli authorities almost never grant Palestinians building permits and they are therefore forced to build without them. This then allows Israel to declare their homes illegal and issue demolition orders against them.

The Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem has itself been declared illegal by the UN and yet Israel is able to demolish the homes of Palestinians on Palestinian land on the basis that they have been illegally built. 19 Palestinian homes had been demolished in 2009 up to the end of April. This left 100 Palestinians homeless. The rate of demolitions is increasing as the ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem gathers pace.


To enter East Jerusalem we had to go through the huge checkpoint from Bethlehem. The checkpoint is more like an airport terminal than a crossing between 2 cities. Both East Jerusalem and Bethlehem are supposedly on Palestinian territory but the huge wall that Israel has built cuts them off from each other. The wall surrounds East Jerusalem.







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The Apartheid Wall

Israel calls the wall a 'security wall' and claims it is necessary for its protection. However, if this were the real purpose, you would imagine it would be built along the border of Israel and the West Bank. It is not, it snakes into the West Bank capturing the biggest of the illegal settlements and stealing huge swathes of Palestinian farmland. There is no official map of the wall but estimates suggest that when complete it will mean up to 50% of West Bank land has been taken from the Palestinians (taking into consideration militarised no-go zones and Israeli designated 'nature reserves' on Palestinian land).

The United Nations aid agency, UNRWA, made the following statement:

"Whatever the final route of the wall it will effectively place much of the West Bank lands out of bounds for the Palestinians."

Villages have had their livelihoods stolen from them, families have been cut off from each other and many homes demolished to make way for the wall. The reason it has been called an 'apartheid wall' is that it is built on Palestinian land but is designed to separate the Palestinians population from the ruling Jewish population geographically and economically. It is another example of Israel unilaterally creating 'facts on the ground' in order to prevent any negotiations reaching a just and lasting peace.

Many western artists have used the wall as a canvas (including Banksy). A selection of my favourites are shown here (click on them to enlarge them). I'm still undecided on whether this decoration of the monstrosity is a good thing or not.


The International Court of Justice declared the wall illegal in 2003 and called for its immediate dismantlement. Needless to say there was no rush from Europe or the US to enforce the ruling.

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There was a very tense atmosphere in Jerusalem the first day we visited. We kept coming across crowds of Israeli riot police in the old city who looked more than out of place. We discovered that some Jewish settlers had tried to storm Al-Aqsa mosque earlier that week. This kind of fanatic violence is on the increase in Jerusalem as the settlers are again doing the Israeli governments dirty work by terrorising the Palestinian population in the hope they will decide to leave.

I got talking with an ISM (International Solidarity Movement) activist from the US called Tom. He had been living in East Jerusalem for a couple of months in order to monitor the Israeli authorities demolition activity but also the violent behaviour of the settlers. He had witnessed gangs of armed settlers taking over houses in East Jerusalem. The authorities, as in Hebron, protect these extremists and they have been succesful in taking over increasing numbers of buildings in East Jerusalem old city. You can see Israeli flags flying from the upper floors of buildings where these lunatics have taken up residence.

Whilst the fanatics are violently ejecting people from their homes and terrorising Palestinians in the old city of East Jerusalem, the authorities are doing their bit by demolishing homes in the suburbs. Tom from the ISM had been staying in a village who's homes were under imminent threat of demolition. Because of the aggressive bureaucracy tactics detailed above in relation to building permits, there are currently 60,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem at risk of having their homes demolished.

I've borrowed some of Tom's photos. One shows armed settlers entering a Palestinian house in the old city, the second is a recently demolished Palestinian house in Jerusalem and the third shows Palestinian children clearing the rubble from the street. The Palestinian families are fined by the Israeli authority if they do not clear the rubble of their homes that the Israelis have just demolished.