After weeks of issuing adamant statements to the contrary, the orphaned Israeli cabinet led by acting PM Ehud Olmert decided unanimously this Sunday to allow a limited number of Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem (a maximum of 5,000 out of a total population of 240,000) to vote through absentee ballots in the upcoming Palestinian legislative elections, while at the same time insisting that Hamas would not be allowed “under any circumstances” to campaign in the contested city. The veiled statement issued on the subject by Israeli Foreign Ministry Mark Regev today had about it the whiff of a face-safer: “In light of the Palestinian Authority’s explicit commitment to disband Hamas and its terror infrastructure after and as a result of the elections, Israel will not provide the Palestinian Authority any excuse for postponement of the elections.”
This two-pronged decision, essentially a realist’s compromise that allows Israel to give into one key Palestinian demand while refusing another, was likely forced on the rump Olmert-led cabinet by pressures emanating from an assortment of contrary sources. The first among these were the Americans, who commendably insisted that the Israelis allow the Palestinian elections to be free and fair (although the discussion on what exactly would constitute such fairness was less commendable, with equivocal statements being issued daily by various American officials about the impossibility of a Palestinian Authority that included “terrorists”). The second was an unusually firm President Abbas, who consistently stuck to his position that elections would be postponed unless all candidates were allowed to freely campaign, and unless Palestinians in Jerusalem were allowed to vote (with the implicit threat of a spiraling anarchy in the Territories, and a consequent violent spill-over in Israel, in the event of such postponement). The third was Hamas itself, whose cadres darkly hinted at “other methods” if the party were not allowed to campaign freely in Jerusalem. Then, fourth, and from the opposite direction, were the rightist (and centrist) Israeli politicians, military officials and security hawks who insisted that Hamas, as a terrorist group that has yet to give up arms and renounce the language in its charter that calls for Israel’s destruction, has no right to campaign in the “undivided Jerusalem” that is claimed as the capital of Israel.
These contrary pressures resulted in a conflation, in the minds of Israeli officials, of two issues that have nothing to do with each other (apart from the fact that both make evident Israeli’s ability and willingness to interfere in internal Palestinian matters). The first issue is about voter eligibility - do Palestinian Jerusalemites have the right to vote from Jerusalem in the parliamentary elections? – and the answer depends on whether east Jerusalem, which was annexed illegally by Israel in the war of 1967 and which is claimed by Palestinians as their capital, is to be considered, for the purposes of the election, part of the Palestinian Territories. The second issue is about candidate eligibility: does Israel have the right to determine the palatability of candidates in Palestinian elections? Both issues, of course, hinge on the central question of agency, i.e., who decides?
The answer, clearly, to both these questions is: “not Israel.” Despite the apparent magnanimity of the Cabinet decision arrived at on Sunday, Israel has no legal right to interfere in either issue: because Israel’s occupation (and subsequent annexation) of east Jerusalem is not legal under international law, Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem are, under that same law, considered occupied subjects who have the right to vote in their own elections. (The clarity of international law on the subject is, however, obfuscated by a fuzzy Oslo-era agreement signed between the PNA and the then-Israeli government that essentially allows Israel to circumscribe the numbers of Palestinian Jerusalemites allowed to vote in PNA elections). And because the legislative elections are an internal Palestinian matter, no external party can interfere with candidate selection without also severely compromising the sovereignty of the institution in question (in this case, the Palestinian Legislative Council and, in turn, the Palestinian National Authority).
Thus, Israel’s last-minute decision to allow a limited number of Palestinian Jerusalemites to vote through absentee ballots at Jerusalem post offices (manned by Israeli postal authorities who know nothing about correct electoral practices), and to prevent candidates from Hamas from campaigning openly in Jerusalem, is an imperfect compromise that essentially places a band-aid over a gaping wound: it allows the elections to go on as scheduled, thereby preventing further anarchy in the Territories; it allows the PNA to pretend, on election day at least, that it exercises sovereign control over the Palestinian Territories; and it allows the people of Palestine to believe, for a day, that they are able to freely exercise the right to determine how they are to be governed.
The Israeli Cabinet may have struggled hard to find a way to balance competing pressures to arrive at this decision, but it did not struggle hard enough to arrive at an answer to the essential question that lies underneath: who decides?
Believing in Jerusalem
Date posted: May 27, 2013
By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
Last week, Israel barred a UNESCO fact-finding mission from entering the country, charging that the Palestinians had ‘politicized’ the mission before it had even arrived. The mission was tasked with looking into conditions of historical sites in the Old City of Jerusalem, something Israel apparently found to be very threatening.
Looking at the state of Jerusalem’s eastern sector today, it is understandable why Israel would not want UNESCO or anyone else walking around the Old City, especially the Palestinian-populated parts of it. Because anyone who does, will see the devastation that Israel and its settlers have wreaked on one of the oldest and most beautiful cities in the world.
Excavation works are being conducted in and around the Aqsa Mosque to make way for more Jewish construction at the place where Waqf authorities say Ottoman and Abbasid artifacts have long been tucked away. A Muslim graveyard is being dug up just outside the Old City’s Jaffa Gate, to build – ironically – a museum of tolerance. Today, two stores were forcefully taken over by Jewish settlers in Al Hakari, one of the neighborhoods in the Muslim quarter and every day, it seems that more and more homes are either being demolished by Israeli municipality authorities or being taken over by Jewish settlers.
The “Judiazation” of Jerusalem is a term many Palestinians and Arabs use for what Israel is doing in the city. In a nutshell, it is the long-term plan Israel is gradually carrying out to change the Arab Palestinian character of Jerusalem. This means demolishing old and historical structures, displacing Palestinians, handing over their homes to settlers and trying to erase the Palestinian or Arab history of the city.
The sad truth is that, on the surface, Israel has succeeded in this to a large extent. Pockets of Jewish settlers now live in the heart of Muslim quarters and aim to take over more and more. Sheikh Jarrah, one of the more affluent Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem, is now pierced with Jewish flags waving from homes that have been wrestled from their Palestinian owners, and Israel’s light rail train cuts right down through Palestinian neighborhoods outside of the city center. The train, of course, is not meant to service the Palestinian population but rather to connect Jewish neighborhoods and settlements in the city, but the area confiscated from Shufat and Beit Hanina for its construction simply fell into the plan.
What the UNESCO mission would not have seen even if they made it into the Old City is the overall humiliation that the Palestinian population of Jerusalem must endure on a daily basis because of Israel’s military occupation. Trips to the Israeli ministry of interior must be made just to prove that one lives in the city for fear that their residency rights may be revoked; young Palestinian men are stopped randomly by Israeli soldiers to check their ID cards or just to harass them, and settlers are always given the luxury of maximum security whenever they walk the streets. If settlers want to march through the city, the Palestinians are told to close their shops, are barred for hours from reaching their homes if they run along the path of the march and are always the ones blamed if any kind of confrontation between the two sides breaks out.
Jerusalem is being squeezed by these measures more and more each day. But there is always that glimmer of hope, that strength that shines through proving that all is not lost. On Shavuot, Israeli settlers and extremists poured into the Old City, singing loudly, banging on the shop doors and waving huge Israeli flags. The sight was disconcerting to say the least. However, the afternoon of that same day, at Damascus Gate, passersby were met with a completely different scene. Palestinian flags waved in determined Palestinian hands under the threatening eye of heavily armed Israeli police and soldiers. The youths were fearless, demanding freedom, with strong, unrelenting voices.
The sight of the Palestinian flag waving at the entrance to Damascus Gate was a breath of fresh air. All is not lost and never will be because hope is eternal and determination and strength come from a never-ending spring.
That day at Damascus Gate is what all Palestinians must keep in their minds’ eye in spite of the daily oppression of the occupation. No matter how many missions Israel bars from entering or how many houses it takes over, there will always be those brave souls who, despite the risks, will always raise Palestine’s flag.
Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
Let Mohammed rest in peace
Date posted: May 20, 2013
By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
There is no point falling into the pit of countering the claims being made about the death of Mohammed Al Durra, the 12-year old boy from Gaza whose videotaped killing was seen around the world. The boy, crouching in fear behind is equally afraid father as bullets whizzed around them, was killed admittedly by the Israeli army. Later, the army recanted after investigating the tape, saying Durra was killed by Palestinian fire instead. Well now, Israel is changing its story altogether, saying he was not killed at all. In fact, he was probably not even wounded and the French channel that broadcast the footage and brought some pretty bad rap to Israel, had most likely filmed a charade.
The reason why I will not waste my time countering this claim is that even with the great lengths the Israeli government went to to prove that the boy was never killed, it could not provide any irrefutable proof that Mohammed Al Durra – who would be 25 now – is still alive. No pictures, no testimonies, no hospital or morgue officials giving statements to refute his death, have been provided. Only sketchy information about ‘poor quality footage’ and the fact that it seems as though the boy moved his arm after he had slumped over his father following the explosion.
My point is this: indeed, Mohammed Durra’s death was at least one of the catalysts that fueled the second Intifada, and thus, was an important event in the history of the Palestinians. However, more importantly – most importantly to me –is the fact that this is about a boy who died in sheer terror, with his distraught father futilely trying to shelter him from the barrage of bullets coming their way.
Mohammed Al Durra was a boy, with a life, a family and friends. He died a horrible death and now he is being made to die a second one. I did not know Mohammed or his family, but I can only imagine how awful it must be for them to read these claims now and feel the pain of losing their child all over again. If nothing else, this is disrespect for human life of the worst kind.
Some may postulate that the rehashing of the Durra case is a personal jab at the French cameraman who shot the footage, Charles Enderlin. Perhaps. But as a Palestinian who has seen the pain endured by numerous families who receive the horrible news that their sons or daughters have been killed by the Israeli army, my concern is for his family and for his memory. He should be left to rest in peace. If Israel has axes to grind with French journalists or with the international community for holding it accountable for its actions, then so be it. Israel is not lacking in the public relations department.
That being said, there is just one decent thing left to do. Leave Mohammed Al Durra and his memory alone.
Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
Recognition and justice is our demand
Date posted: May 13, 2013
By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
This week Palestinians will commemorate Al Nakba, the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people when Israel was founded. Every year, Palestinians hang placards pointing to the right of return, they carry keys symbolizing the homes they were forced to leave and could not return to and remember the Palestine that was lost to them 65 years ago.
This year will be no different. Every May 15, Palestinian recall their catastrophe and demand justice. They demand that they are granted the right of return for those who were made refugees virtually overnight and were then relegate to a life they did not choose. But more than anything, they demand recognition of the tragedy that befell them rather than a denial that it ever happened, or worse, that it was of their own making.
It has been 65 years since Israel was established in 1948, which means those who were cast into exile are either very old or have long passed. Those who experienced the Nakba are now few and far between, clinging to those few precious memories of a small garden in front of their house in Jaffa or of the salty smell of the sea in their neighborhood in Haifa. The rest of us are either descendants of these refugees or ordinary Palestinians who feel their cause is our cause because we are one people.
But the Palestinians have made one thing clear. The refugee issue will not die with the last refugee. It is felt nationwide, the loss, the injustice and the fact that those who were forced from their homes have mostly passed, longing for their beloved homes.
We cannot turn back time. What was lost has been altered, destroyed, changed or taken over by Israel’s newcomers. What we can do is hold on to the right to be recognized, for the injustice to be rectified in word and deed and for Palestine to never be lost in our minds or hearts.
Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
