General Mission of Palestine-Tokyo HOME
Japanese
HOME > The Conflict > Jerusalem
Jerusalem
Summary
1947 UN Partition Plan
1967 Occupation
Changing Demographics
UN Position on East Jerusalem
U.S. Position on East Jerusalem
E.U. Position on East Jerusalem
The Palestinian Position on Jerusalem

Summary

For centuries, Jerusalem has been the geographical, political, administrative and spiritual canter of Palestine. The city is central to Islam, Christianity and Judaism and is known in Arabic as"Al-Quds" (The Holy City). [ Interactive Map on Jerusalem ]


1947 UN Partition Plan

When the United Nations voted to partition Palestine in 1947 against the wishes of the majority of Palestine's inhabitants, Jerusalem and its environs (including the city of Bethlehem to the south) were not allocated to either the Palestinian or Jewish state, but were instead to be administered internationally as a separate entity. The borders of the UN Partition Plan, which allotted approximately 55% of Palestine to a Jewish State, remain the only internationally recognized borders of Israel.

During the 1948 war, Israel ignored the Partition Plan and invaded and occupied 84% of Jerusalem. Jordanian forces prevented Israel from occupying the remainder of Jerusalem, including the Old City (11.5% of Jerusalem's 1948 border). A remaining 4.5% of Jerusalem's 1948 border became "no-man's land".

The bulk of Jerusalem which Israel occupied in 1948 came to be known as "West Jerusalem" and the remainder of Jerusalem occupied by Jordan in 1948 came to be known as "East Jerusalem".

Approximately 20, 000 Muslim and Christian residents of West Jerusalem fled or were expelled from their homes and have never been permitted to return.



1967 Occupation

In 1967, Israel militarily occupied East Jerusalem, the rest of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Four days after the occupation began, Israeli forces destroyed the Arab "Mughrabi" Quarter of the Old City giving the residents only 3 hours notice and making approximately 6, 000 Palestinians homeless. The Western Wall plaza is created in its place.

Despite Israel's claim that it never intended to occupy Palestinian lands, Israel unilaterally expanded the borders of Jerusalem only weeks after the war's conclusion. The expansion incorporated 1.3% of the Occupied Palestinian Territories into a newly expanded "Jerusalem municipality" and enlarged East Jerusalem to more than ten times its pre-occupation size. The new borders were drawn in such a way as to incorporate undeveloped Palestinian land while leaving Palestinian population centers outside the new borders. The undeveloped land was used to build illegal Israeli colonies in an effort to change East Jerusalem's demographic make-up.

In 1980, the Israeli government passed the "Basic Law" by which it extended Israeli jurisdiction to occupied East Jerusalem. The attempt at annexation violated the international legal prohibition against acquiring territory by force and was declared of "no legal validity" by the United Nations Security Council.



Changing Demographics

Since the 1967 occupation, the Israeli government has systematically pursued three interrelated policies aimed at increasing the number of Israeli Jews in Occupied East Jerusalem while minimizing the number of Christians and Muslim Palestinians: (i) creation of Israeli colonies in East Jerusalem; (ii) discriminatory practices against the Christian and Muslim Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem; and (iii) the closing of Jerusalem to the Palestinian population of the rest of the Occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Colonies (Settlements). Soon after the start of Israel's 1967 military occupation, Israel began constructing Israeli colonies in Occupied East Jerusalem in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention's prohibition against transferring civilian populations into Occupied Territory. Colony construction continues to this day. The Israeli government incentives Israelis to settle Occupied East Jerusalem through housing subsidies and other benefits. As a result, the settler population of East Jerusalem accounts for nearly 80% of the total increase in Jerusalem's Jewish population since 1967.The illegal colonies now form a ring around the entire occupied portion of the city, sealing off East Jerusalem from the remainder of the West Bank. [ Maps:Israeli Colonization of Jerusalem ] Today, approximately half of the nearly 400, 000 illegal settlers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories live in Occupied East Jerusalem.

Discrimination. Since the 1967 occupation, the Israeli government and the Jerusalem municipality have adopted a discriminatory policy of "separate and unequal."


*Residency Rights: East Jerusalem Palestinians must have residency cards to live in their own city. In order to minimize the number of Muslim and Christian Palestinians in Occupied East Jerusalem, Israel has implemented an active policy of stripping East Jerusalem Palestinians of their residency cards.Israel requires Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem to regularly prove that Jerusalem is their "center of life". Consequently Palestinian residents risk losing their residency rights if they study or work outside Jerusalem. To date, nearly 7, 000 Palestinians have lost their residency rights, and thousands of others have been forced to bring legal claims to protect their residency. Israeli Jewish residents living illegally in Occupied East Jerusalem are full Israeli citizens and cannot be stripped of their Jerusalem residency rights.


*Building Restrictions: Discriminatory zoning policies make it extremely difficult for Palestinian owners to build on their own land or to add additional rooms to existing structures.As a result, Palestinian lands in East Jerusalem remain empty until they are expropriated for the construction of Israeli colonies. Since 1967, Israel has expropriated approximately 34% of East Jerusalem's land area for "public use". [1] Another 53% of East Jerusalem's land has been set aside for colonies or designated as "green areas."[2] Palestinians in East Jerusalem can therefore live and build on only 13% of their land. Palestinians who, lacking any other alternative, build without permits have been subject to forced evictions and home demolitions. Over 2, 000 Palestinian homes in Occupied East Jerusalem have been destroyed by Israeli occupation forces since 1967. [3]


*Taxes: Palestinian Jerusalemites, who constitute more than 30% of the Jerusalem (East and West) population, receive only 5-10% of Jerusalem's social services expenditures. In 2002, East Jerusalem's Christian and Muslim residents received only 16.6% of Jerusalem's education budget and 6.2% of Jerusalem's health budget. [4]


*Isolation. Since the 1994 start of the Oslo process, Israel has prevented Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip from entering any portion of Jerusalem. Non-Jerusalemite Palestinians wishing to enter Jerusalem must use a temporary permit that Israeli authorities rarely grant. This closure policy has resulted in more than 3 million Christian and Muslim Palestinians being denied access to their holy sites in Jerusalem, even during religious holidays. It has also isolated Jerusalem, an important economic, transportation and cultural center, from the rest of the West Bank, in effect prohibiting the non-Jerusalemite Palestinian population from studying in East Jerusalem or receiving certain medical treatments that are only available in East Jerusalem hospitals.


*The Jerusalem Wall. In 2003, Israel began constructing a wall around Occupied East Jerusalem. If the wall were truly about Israel's security as Israel claims, the wall would have been built on the border between Israel and Occupied East Jerusalem. Instead, Israel is building the wall well within Occupied Palestinian Territory in order to unilaterally impose its own expanded borders on Jerusalem and consolidate the isolation of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. The wall is expected to de facto annex 320 square kilometres in and around East Jerusalem (or approximately 5.6% of the entire West Bank's land mass). [ [ [ Map:Israel's "Security" Wall in Occupied East Jerusalem, Autumn 2003 ]


International Law and East Jerusalem:" Inadmissibility of Acquisition of Territory by Force"

Customary international law, as reflected in the United Nations charter (Article 2, paragraph 4), rejects the admissibility of acquisition of territory by force and consequently, Israel's annexation and authority over East Jerusalem is illegal under international law.



UN Position on East Jerusalem

The United Nations recognizes East Jerusalem as occupied territory (subject to the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention) and consequently rejects Israeli claims of sovereignty over East Jerusalem:


*In response to Israel's occupation of foreign territory, United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 242 of 1967 calls for the "withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict."


*In response to Israel's expansion of Jerusalem's borders, UNSCR 252 of 1968 states that the Security Council "Considers that all. . .actions taken by Israel. . .which tend to change the legal status of Jerusalem are invalid and cannot change that status."


*In response to Israel's attempt to annex Occupied East Jerusalem, UNSCR 476 of 1980 states that the Security Council "Reconfirms that all. . .actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, which purport to alter the character and status of. . .Jerusalem have no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and also constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East."



U.S. Position on East Jerusalem

Official U.S. policy does not recognize Israel's attempted annexation of East Jerusalem. The official U.S. position is embodied in the U.S. Letter of Assurances to the Palestinians of October 1991, part of the official record of the Madrid Peace Conference. In part, it reads:

Official U.S. policy does not recognize Israel's attempted annexation of East Jerusalem. The official U.S. position is embodied in the U.S. Letter of Assurances to the Palestinians of October 1991, part of the official record of the Madrid Peace Conference. In part, it reads:

We do not recognize Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem or the extension of its municipal boundaries, and we encourage all sides to avoid unilateral acts that would exacerbate local tensions or make negotiations more difficult or preempt their final outcome.



E.U. Position on East Jerusalem

Official European Union policy regards East Jerusalem as Occupied Territory and rejects Israeli claims of sovereignty over East Jerusalem. In a Declaration by the E.U. Council of Ministers on October 1, 1996, the E.U. declared that:

East Jerusalem is subject to the principles set out in UN Security Council Resolution 242, notably the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force and is therefore not under Israeli sovereignty. The Union asserts that the Fourth Geneva Convention is fully applicable to East Jerusalem, as it is to other territories under occupation.



The Palestinian Position on Jerusalem

As part of the territory occupied in 1967, Israel has no right to any part of East Jerusalem. It is part of the territory over which the indigenous Palestinian population shall exercise sovereignty upon Israeli withdrawal.

In conformity with international law and as stated in the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements, all of Jerusalem (and not merely East Jerusalem) is the subject of permanent status negotiations.

Jerusalem should be an open city. Within Jerusalem, irrespective of the resolution of the question of sovereignty, there should be no physical partition that would prevent the free circulation of persons within it.

Palestine and Israel shall be committed to guaranteeing freedom of worship at and access to religious sites within Jerusalem. Both states will take all possible measures to protect such sites and preserve their dignity.


Contact us
Copyright (c) 2004 General Mission of Palestine. All Rights Reserved.