While rival Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank have been engaged in fierce in-fighting throughout the day on Friday, 22 December, Israeli newspapers reported that the route of the Annexation Wall in the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement will go ahead as planned, despite Palestinian protest.

The current route of the Wall greatly strangulates the lives of Palestinian villages adjacent to the large settlement, namely Abu Dis and Sawahreh Al Sharqiyyeh. The Wall’s construction in the area will further prevent citizens from these villages from having any access to east Jerusalem, where their trade, education, health, and other essential services are based.

According to Mr. Khalil Al Toufakji, from the Arab Studies Society, media focus on Jerusalem issues has been reduced to purely religious dimensions despite the fact that Israeli policies are clearly headed towards eradicating any Palestinian presence in the city.

Israeli measures in Jerusalem will adversely affect the outcome of final status negotiations as they continue to create facts on the ground, in contradiction to the Road Map and the declared position of US President George W. Bush. The Wall’s route and continued settlement expansion and land expropriation in and around Jerusalem will consolidate the Israeli policy in the city, whereby a massive drive to exclude Palestinians from Jerusalem continues unchecked.

According to Mr. Toufakji, Israel seeks to have an overwhelming majority of Jewish citizens of 88%, compared to only 12% Palestinians, who, in order to remain citizens of the city, will be forced to take up Israeli citizenship. For the time being, Palestinians in Jerusalem hold permanent residency status, which they are constantly fighting to hold on to by proving that Jerusalem is the center of their life. If Palestinians are forced to become citizens of the state of Israeli, negotiations on the status of the city will be jeopardized to exclude them, according to Mr. Toufakji, and will spell the certain loss of the city to Israel.

In accordance with international law, Jerusalem continues to be classified as occupied territory. Mr. Toufakji warned that Jerusalem, a city significant to the three monotheistic faiths, is increasingly becoming an exclusively Jewish city, where respect for the freedom of worship, for Palestinian Muslims and Christians, not to mention billions of Christian and Muslim believers worldwide, is being trampled upon in the most fundamental way possible.