Israeli minister to push plan aimed at reducing number of Arabs in Jerusalem
Jerusalem
Affairs Minister Zeev Elkin has unveiled his proposal for the municipal
division of Jerusalem, which would see several Arab neighborhoods
beyond the West Bank separation barrier split off from the Jerusalem municipality and be placed under the jurisdiction of one or more new council administrations.
The move will require the approval of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the completion of various legislative amendments, whose first reading was already passed by the Knesset in July.
Elkin
said he believed his plan, which he intends to promote in the coming
weeks, will not face serious resistance from either the right or left.
This is the first attempt to reduce the municipal area of Jerusalem
since it was expanded after the Six-Day War in 1967. It is also the
first attempt to establish an extraordinary Israeli local council whose
inhabitants are not Israeli citizens, but rather Palestinians with the
status of permanent residents only.
The
neighborhoods beyond the separation barrier are the Shoafat refugee
camp and a neighborhood adjacent to it in northeast Jerusalem, Kafr
Aqab, as well as Walajah, in the southern part of the city, and a small
part of the neighborhood of Sawahra.
No
one knows precisely how many people live in these areas. The figure is
estimated at between 100,000 and 150,000, one-third to one-half of whom
have Israeli identity cards and residency status. Since the construction
of the separation barrier some 13 years ago (the barrier at Walajah is
currently being completed), these areas have been cut off from
Jerusalem, though they still come under the capital’s jurisdiction.
Following
construction of the barrier, the Jerusalem Municipality, police and
other Israeli agencies stopped providing services in these areas.
Anarchy reigned in the near-absence of police and construction
inspectors, with very serious infrastructure problems. Tens of thousands
of housing units were constructed without permits, and crime
organizations and drug dealers have proliferated.
“The
current system has completely failed,” Elkin said. “The moment they
routed the barrier the way they did, it was a mistake. But at the
moment, there are two municipal areas – Jerusalem and these
neighborhoods, and the connection between them is very loose.
“The
army can’t formally act there, the police go in only for operations,
and the area has become a no-man’s-land,” he added. “Providing services
of any kind has become dangerous, and tall buildings and such high
density as this can’t even be seen in Tel Aviv.”
Elkin also cited the danger that the buildings could collapse in an earthquake.
However,
these are not the only problems worrying Elkin. He is also concerned
with the rapid demographic growth in these areas, and its impact on the
balance between Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem.
Many
of the families in these neighborhoods consist of one parent who is an
Israeli resident, and therefore the children are Israeli residents –
which increases the number of Palestinian residents in Jerusalem.
According
to Elkin, cheap housing, proximity to Jerusalem and the lawlessness
prevailing there have made these neighborhoods a magnet for people from
Jerusalem and the West Bank.
“There are also dramatic impacts in terms of the Jewish majority and
because you can’t improve the standard of living there, because we
expect [the population] will continue to grow,” Elkin said.
The
minister added: “Precisely because I believe in their electoral right
and I want them to use it, I cannot be indifferent to the danger of the
loss of a Jewish majority that is caused not by natural processes, but
by illegal migration into the State of Israel that there is no way for
me to prevent.”
Elkin
said various solutions had previously been examined in order to tackle
the problem. In terms of security and ideologically, the minister said
he rejected solutions such as handing the neighborhoods over to the Palestinian Authority. He also rejected changing the route of the separation barrier for security, financial and legal reasons.
The
details of Elkin’s plan are not final. It is unclear whether this will
be a single regional council without territorial contiguity or two
regional councils. So far, the residents have not agreed to hold
elections to establish the new municipal entity, and in the initial
years it would operate under an administration appointed by the interior
minister.
“I
have no doubt that for this plan to succeed, cooperation will have to
develop with the local leadership,” Elkin said. “Their interest is in
changing their intolerable living conditions. It might take time,
because there is a lot of mistrust – but it can’t get any worse,” he
added. Elkin pledged significant government investment in the
neighborhoods.
Elkin has been working on his plan for several months. When Education Minister Naftali Bennett
raised his proposal to amend the Basic Law on Jerusalem, Elkin feared
if that bill passed in its current form, it would put his own plan at
risk – since Bennett’s proposal would prevent a future division of
Jerusalem.
To
address this issue, Elkin inserted an ambiguous clause into Bennett’s
bill: This would make it impossible to give any part of Jerusalem to the
PA, but the municipality could be divided into smaller Israeli council
entities.
Most
of the lawmakers supporting Bennett’s bill did not know they were
voting for a bill that might involve splitting off parts of the
Jerusalem municipality. But Bennett’s acceptance of the clause allowed
the governing coalition to support the bill, and the law passed with the
automatic support of most of the coalition.
Elkin
said the legislation would be completed in November and would then be
presented to Netanyahu. If the prime minister, who is aware of the
details of the plan, supports it, it could move ahead quickly. Legally,
the plan does not require Knesset legislation, but only a decision by
the interior minister.
“This
idea is not easy for either the left or the right to accept,” Elkin
said. “Each side can see benefits, but on the other hand there are
dangers. It’s true that if someone wants to transfer this area [to
Palestinian administration], it will be easier to do so,” he added.
In
political circles, it is believed that the plan’s main opponent will be
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, because the municipality stands to lose
major funding if it loses administrative control of these neighborhoods.
The PA is also expected to oppose the plan, seeing it as an attempt to
increase the number of Jews in Jerusalem.
Meanwhile,
the coalition is also promoting a plan by MK Yoav Kish (Likud) that
would annex – municipally, but not politically – the residents of the
settlements situated near the capital under one municipal roof. This
would add hundreds of thousands of Jewish voters to the Jerusalem
Municipality, and on paper would change the demographic balance of the
city.
Although
it is on the agenda for the Ministerial Committee for Legislation’s
meeting on Sunday, there will be no vote on the bill at the meeting.
According to a senior member of the coalition, this is because the bill
in its current form “invites international pressure and contains serious
legal problems. Netanyahu can’t allow himself to promote this form of
the bill at this time.”
Nir Hasson
Haaretz Correspondent
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