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The East Jerusalem issue

By The World ⋅ March 16, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment
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US Middle East envoy George Mitchell has postponed a visit to Israel amid a continuing quarrel over Israel’s decision to build more Jewish homes in East Jerusalem. Mitchell had been due to meet President Shimon Peres today but the trip has now been put off. The building announcement – made as Vice-President Joe Biden visited last week to try to kick-start stalled peace talks – angered Washington. Tension remains high in Jerusalem, with a number of clashes and more security forces moving in as rock throwing protesters vent their frustration. The World’s Matthew Bell chronicles the developing tensions over East Jerusalem. (photo: Matthew Bell)

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MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman.  This is The World.  U.S. Special Envoy George Mitchell has cancelled a planned visit to the Middle East.  It’s the latest sign of a rift between the U.S. and Israel.  U.S. officials are upset over Israel’s refusal to stop building Jewish homes in East Jerusalem.  And today there was visible Palestinian anger over that same issue.  Clashes erupted in East Jerusalem between Palestinian protestors and Israeli security forces.  The World’s Matthew Bell reports from Jerusalem.

[SOUNDS OF VOICES, BOOMING SOUND]

MATTHEW BELL: The trouble started this morning with groups of masked Palestinians throwing rocks and burning tires in parts of East Jerusalem.  Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 War.  It annexed the territory soon after, but most governments around the world don’t recognize the territory as part of Israel.  Successive Israeli leaders have called Jerusalem -  East and West – the eternal capital of the Jewish state.  But current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has acknowledged Washington’s concerns about disputed East Jerusalem.  He recently delayed plans for an archeological park in one East Jerusalem neighborhood that could mean the demolition of dozens of Arab homes.  [PH] Eye-dah Rishek lives in one of those houses with her husband and seven children.

FEMALE TRANSLATOR: [FOR EYE-DAH RISHEK, SPEAKING IN ARABIC] If they demolish our house, which they will, we will live in a tent.  But the problem is, they’re confiscating the land, too, on which the house is built.  So we will not even have land to put our tent on.

BELL: The Rishek family says they applied for a permit to build.  It was denied.  But they needed somewhere to live so they went ahead with construction four years ago.  Jerusalem authorities say buildings slated for demolition were built illegally, and the families were offered other homes.

Another controversy for Palestinians this week is the opening of a newly renovated synagogue in the Old City.  Some say it’s yet another sign that the Israelis want to take over all of Jerusalem.  But Israel says Palestinians are playing with fire by calling for a mass movement to quote “defend al Aksa”, the mosque at the center of Jerusalem’s Old City.  If that kind of rhetoric risks sounding like a call for war to American officials, Marwan Shahban says that’s not fair.  He’s a member of the Fatah party’s regional office in Jerusalem.

FEMALE INTERPRETER: [FOR MARWAN SHAHBAN, SPEAKING IN ARABIC]  It is ironic that the Settlement Expansion Project eating up Palestinian areas and that is spreading like cancer does not irritate the United States of America, or they do not describe it as war, while our call for protecting the Aksa mosque is considered as a holy war.

BELL: Leaders of the Islamic militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, called for a so-called “Day of Rage” today.  More moderate Palestinians, like Shahban, say they understand the sentiment, but he wants the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank to get back to negotiations with Israel.

FEMALE INTERPRETER: [FOR MARWAN SHAHBAN, SPEAKING IN ARABIC]  The more it does not engage in negotiations, the more it gives Israel the chance to consolidate its facts on the ground.

BELL: Facts on the ground happen to be Arieh King’s specialty.  He’s with a group called the Israel Land Fund, which is active in helping Jewish families settle in East Jerusalem.

ARIEH KING: This is the City of David, the Old City, Mount of Olives, Kidon Valley; this is where our source of life is.  So if you think that you can divide the city, in fact you are cutting part of our heart from our body.

BELL: But that’s what the Obama administration is pressuring Israel to do – negotiate a two state solution with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.  King and others from the Israeli right wing have said Israel needs to stand up to Barack Obama.

KING: He knows that the United States needs Israel strong for the sake of the United States.

BELL: Not the other way around.

KING: Do you know about one – one country that U.S. can depend more than Israel in the Middle East?

BELL: There isn’t one, King suggests.  On the Israeli left, there are predictions of the Prime Minister’s coming political demise.  They say Benjamin Netanyahu can’t please both Washington and the Israeli right wing when it comes to East Jerusalem.  For The World, I’m Matthew Bell.


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Discussion

8 comments for “The East Jerusalem issue”

  • Bruce

    Israel made a major political blunder by anouncing a new housing development while V.P. Biden was in the country. The truth is every Israeli government since 1967 has done the same. Matthew Bell’s inserting the dedication of the rebuilding of the Hurva synagoge into the mix with no connotation was biased. The site held a synagoge from 1824 until Jordan siezed the old city in 1948 and destroyed it. Furthermore, the U.S. government did not have an opinion on it. The Jordanians wanted to create the impression that there never was a Jewish presence on the site.

  • Doron L

    The World and Marco Werman really put the knife into Israel, this afternoon, Tuesday 16 March.

    Please Marco, if you are going to punt a fringe Hamas promoter, like Mark Perry blaming Israel for all the US’ ills, don’t go absurdly mention “anti-semitism” in a later interview.

    Marco talked of Palestinian protesters in Jerusalem, and Matthew Bell interviewed a Palestinian family whose illegally built home is apparently scheduled for demolition. He asserted that Palestinians interpret the rededication of the Huerva synagogue as an attack on the Al Aqsa mosque!! The soundbyte with an Israeli in no way balanced the bias.

    There was not a word that the Huerva synagogue was blown up in 1948 together with many other synagogues, and that it has finally been rebuilt. To Marco, this was yet another sign of Israeli intransigence. To listen to Marco Werman, you would think the apartments are being built now, and that the announcement was new. False on both counts: last week’s announcement by a mid-level official, was the 4th in 7 approval stages – and the building if finally approved, won’t start for years.

    The cherry on top came in Marco’s interview of Mark Perry, when Marco asserted how do the 1600 homes that Israel is building in Jerusalem threaten the lives of US soldiers. In the interests of any fairness or disclosure, The World should have pointed out that Perry is a fringe figure, whose Centers down the years have been funded with Arab money. It should have pointed out his non-stop punting of Hamas and Hezbollah. Instead, he was painted as a mainstream author.

    If blaming Israel for what goes in Kabul is not anti-semitism, then I don’t know what is. I urge The World to speak to the respected Walter Russell Mead on this very subject! He is a well respected, centrist, figure, unlike Perry.

    Israel is not to blame for the deaths of US soldiers in Kabul. The Taliban are. Israel is not to blame for suicide bombs. It is Islamist militants that are. Israel is less to blame for the lack of Middle East peace than a rejectionist Arab world.

  • Henry Norr

    Matthew Bell refers to “disputed East Jerusalem.” Why not “occupied East Jerusalem,” as Marco Werman put it. For years Israel and the Israel lobby in the US have used and actively promoted the term “disputed” as an alternative to “occupied,” in hopes they can get out of the legal implications of occupation. But basically only they use that term – the U.S. government, the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the European Union, the UK, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, among other entities, all reject the Israeli usage and consistently use the term “occupied” in reference to East Jerusalem, as well as the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights. (As it happens, the U.S. Department of State issued its annual report on human rights in “Israel and the occupied territories,” including East Jerusalem in the latter category, just last week – see http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2009/nea/136070.htm )

    Because these terms have clear, well established, and important legal and political meanings, choosing between them is not an innocent stylistic question. Why does Bell adopt Israeli usage, rather than that of our own government, the UN, and most of the rest of the world?

  • Linda Jansen

    Hello. Where is the Mark Perry interview about the Pentagon and the Israeli Palestine issue?

    It was amazing to hear such clarity on this issue.

    It doesn’t seem to be listed in your other coverage about East Jerusalem.

  • kurt

    Apparently your correspondent in Jerusalem was unwilling to suggest Turkey as an easy American ally in the Middle East.

    -now some personal response:
    I understand this issue tends to inspire vitreol across the US, but that piece’s language was decidedly in favor of the settlements. For once, please present the side of those who have their borders closed, immigrants/workers harassed, products screened, aid denied, and business development generally impaired.

    That said, I am thrilled that Israel has forced upon the USA a chance to discuss the parallelism of Israeli and US interests. I am glad your news program chose to discuss the issue at all when our Congress and Senate are unwilling. Please continue to deliver facts which encourage us, the listeners, to consider the issues surrounding the problems involved in the Israeli/Middle-East/USA relationship.

  • J Ger

    When I heard Mr King use the analogy of Jerusalem being a heart and half of the heart can not be given up, I felt mine ache for my son who is one of the many Marines stationed in Afghanistan. The heart of a father for his only son and the heart of a real estate developer for property control… It seems that we can work on our priorities on earth or try to justify our actions when we get to the Pearly Gates, but either way, we must do what is right and just. I have a renewed will and commitment to take greater action as an American citizen and to support peace in the Middle East for human life, not land grabs and financial speculation. There is no religious justification for exclusionism. Thanks for the fair and balanced reporting.

  • Joe Bennett

    Maybe I’m crazy in my thinking on this, but Israel practically only has one nation that is willing to stand up for it. That is the United States, yet they are willing to put their fingers in our eyes. It is time for the U. S. government to let them be. We need to take ourselves out of the conflict there, it seems pretty obvious that they don’t want peace.

  • stan squires

    I am from vancouver,canada and i wanted to say that the american gov.is part of the problem.The american gov.shouldn’t be supporting the israeli gov.East Jerusalem is occupied and that got to come to an end.The Palestinian People will solve that problem in spite of the american and other western imperialist govs.attempts to hinder the self determination of the Palestinian People.

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