Discrimination in East Jerusalem

Arab News

21-06-2025

https://arab.news/r8vhf
Periods of war are exceptional times, during which it is perfectly understandable that governments would place certain restrictions on the population. When there is danger to the public from rockets, drones or flying debris, officials understandably prefer that large gatherings be avoided.
In normal emergencies, in normal countries, this is reasonable and acceptable. But in the case of East Jerusalem, the Israeli government takes the issue to an exaggerated, maximum degree. It uses the war situation to punish the Palestinian population, using the justification that they are simply trying to protect them.
The Old City of Jerusalem is home to more than 30,000 Palestinians. It is also the main shopping area for much of the city as a whole, the population of which numbers over 300,000. The Old City is also home to the cradles of world religions.
While the Israeli-initiated war on Iran has raged this past week, Israel unilaterally closed the Old City of Jerusalem to everyone except those who can prove, with ID cards, that they have a local address. In addition, Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre were closed by Israeli security orders.
On the surface, these might appear to be prudent and natural actions to protect the population. But when one realizes that other large shopping areas, such as West Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda, have remained open, it becomes clear that this is a punitive measure and not a genuine effort to protect people.
Regarding the holy places, again, if the policy had been applied to all religious sites, one would concede that it was a decision reached out of caution. But when it becomes clear that the Buraq Wall, also known as the Western Wall, which is a holy site to Jews, has remained open during this period (although few people have visited it), one concludes that the closure of the other sites is not a simple security decision but an unacceptable, prejudicial action based on ethnic and religious discrimination.
Furthermore, Israeli security officials, using the war-like atmosphere as an excuse, have been bullying local muezzins (those who call Muslims to prayer) to considerably reduce the volume of their daily calls or even stop them altogether.
The Palestinians of Jerusalem have no one to defend them.
Daoud Kuttab
In addition to the closures of public spaces and the discrimination against the entire Old City of Jerusalem, Israeli police have been acting in a discriminatory manner against pedestrians. Anyone spotted filming with a cellphone is harassed and ordered to surrender the device so that officers can check whether they have liked any social media posts that might be deemed to indicate support for Iran. In one incident, a Palestinian child and a young man were shot in the A-Tur neighborhood of the city.
The Palestinians of Jerusalem, unfortunately, have no one to defend them, or to plead with the government that collects their taxes to provide compensation for the merchants of the Old City for the large losses they are suffering, or at least to suspend the Arnona municipal property tax.
Since the sudden death of Faisal Al-Husseini in Kuwait in 2001, Palestinians in Jerusalem have not been able to organize and unite under any single leader or spokesperson, and so there has been no representative or leadership in a position to lobby for them.
Of course, the Israelis make the most of this leaderless reality for Palestinians in the city, and fight tooth and nail against any nationalist efforts in Jerusalem. Orient House, which served as the headquarters for Al-Husseini and his Arab Studies Society, was seized by Israeli authorities following his death and has remained closed for more than two decades as a result of a recurring six-month order.
Other local organizations, including the chamber of commerce and the tourism union, are also regularly closed. Cultural centers that attempt to organize any public events that Israeli authorities deem to have nationalistic undertones or to be connected, directly or indirectly, with the Palestinian government in Ramallah are automatically shut down by order of the Israeli police.
Even events such as a children's puppet festival at the Hakawati Theatre, a screening of a documentary about the drug problem East Jerusalemites are facing, or a graduation ceremony sponsored by a local club, have been suddenly canceled on the orders of the Israeli army, using nearly century-old British Mandate emergency regulations.
Despite all of these concerted Israeli efforts, and following a public protest in the form of a statement issued by a nongovernmental organization in Jerusalem criticizing the closure of the holy sites, on Thursday the Israelis finally permitted Muslim worshippers to attend prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque, albeit a mere 450 of them. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre also finally reopened on Tuesday to a handful of local Christian worshippers, and the Catholic Latin Patriarch was allowed to hold religious ceremonies, though they were attended by only a few.
While the situation has slowly, through the force of public pressure, started to return somewhat to normal, there is no doubt that the ways in which Israeli authorities deal with the Palestinians of Jerusalem and the Jewish Israelis of Jerusalem are totally different.