According to a classified EU report, the Israeli government is engaging in an “illegal annexation” of East Jerusalem, considered to be the capital of any future Palestinian state. The Guardian (UK) quotes the confidential document as stating:

Israeli ‘facts on the ground’ – including new settlements, construction of the barrier, discriminatory housing policies, house demolitions, restrictive permit regime and continued closure of Palestinian institutions – increase Jewish Israeli presence in East Jerusalem, weaken the Palestinian community in the city, impede Palestinian urban development and separate East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.

Such “facts on the ground” are usually associated with Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank meant to undermine Palestinian demands for a return to the pre-1967, internationally recognized borders.  As is well known much of Israel’s actions in the occupied territory are justified by the state as security measures enacted to protect illegal settlements.  But so often in the mainstream (and alternative) media East Jerusalem is overlooked and rarely seen as subject to similar policies.  That is why The Guardian report should be noted, and while this is important news – and EU criticism, though at the moment not publicly stated, is something to be welcomed – annexation of the city is merely an expansion of long-running policies.

Jerusalem was divided after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, with a small eastern portion coming under Jordanian control.  In 1967 Israel took over East Jerusalem and occupied the West Bank and Gaza.  According to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem this act already constituted an illegal annexation. Israel’s original appropriation of East Jerusalem incorporated not only the original 6 sq. km controlled by Jordan, but also an additional 64 sq. km, all in an effort to institute a permanent Jewish majority in the city.  As B’Tselem states:

In order to ensure a significant Jewish majority, the primary consideration [of the 1967 annexation] was to prevent the inclusion of heavily-populated Palestinian areas within Jerusalem. Whereas several Palestinian villages were placed outside the city, some of their lands were included within the city’s new borders, examples being Beit Iksa and Beit Hanina in the north, and detached areas lying in the municipalities of Bethlehem and Beit Sahur in the south. Villages and neighborhoods were, therefore, divided; one part remained in the West Bank, and the other part was annexed by Israel.

East Jerusalem has since remained under Israeli municipal authority.  Israel’s supporters are quick to point out that Arabs living in the city were offered – and largely rejected – Israeli citizenship, but fail to mention that the conditions to doing so made it almost impossible for Palestinians to accept.  In addition to the politically untenable step of swearing allegiance to the state of Israel, Palestinians would also have to display knowledge of Hebrew and prove they are not citizens of any other country.  B’Tselem paints their resulting legal status as follows:

Israel treats Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem as immigrants who live in their homes at the beneficence of the authorities and not by right. The authorities maintain this policy although these Palestinians were born in Jerusalem, lived in the city, and have no other home. Treating these Palestinians as foreigners who entered Israel is astonishing, since it was Israel that entered East Jerusalem in 1967.

This brief background is essential to understanding the current actions taken by Israel in East Jerusalem as reported in The Guardian.  As a result of their historically determined legal situation, Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are constantly under threat of home demolition and confiscation of their property.  Israel justifies such actions by claiming these homes were built without proper permits.  But according to The Guardian, “Israel issues fewer than 200 permits a year for Palestinian homes and leaves only 12% of East Jerusalem available for Palestinian residential use.”  Since late 2007 Israel has also been expanding its own settlements in East Jerusalem, with 3,000 units out of 5,500 approved so far, bringing the number of Israeli settlers in city to more than 190,000.

To get a further grasp on the increasing degree of home demolitions in East Jerusalem we have to look at the numbers.  B’Tselem’s most recently published figures cover the years 2004-2008:

While startling, these statistics do not include 2009.  According to a report by the Research and Documentation Unit at the Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights, January and February 2009 saw more than 200 notifications for demolition, with 30 so far destroyed.  The Palestine News Network, reporting on the study, states “most of the demolitions took place in neighborhoods surrounding the Old City and on the fringes of the ongoing expansion of Jewish settlements near neighborhoods and towns surrounding the city’s holy sites in the eastern border and the north-east.”  They estimate that about 20,000 Palestinian homes are under threat while settlements continue to strangle the Arab population.

Israel’s policy in East Jerusalem is straight-forward, and as we have seen consistent with its policies in the occupied territories: establish “facts on the ground” while making life unbearable for Palestinians.  This is part of what has become known in international relations as the “peace process,” used in an effort to undermine any chance for peace.  Orwell would be proud.

The following video is of a home demolition in East Jerusalem taken in July 2008 and published by B’Tselem: