Matthew Williams/The Conflict Archives: Jerusalem.
On a cold January morning in 2020, before the world was consumed by the Covid-19 pandemic, President Donald Trump introduced his Middle East Plan to the press. In the absence of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the president and the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled the White House’s ‘Peace to Prosperity’ plan, a document designed as a ‘realistic solution would give the Palestinians all the power to govern themselves but not the powers to threaten Israel.’
“Today Israel has taken a giant step toward peace,” said Trump. “Prime Minister Netanyahu informed me that he is willing to endorse the vision as the basis for direct negotiations with the Palestinians, a historic breakthrough.” In response, Netanyahu - who rarely saw eye to eye with Trump’s predecessor, President Obama - was grateful to the U.S President. “You became the first world leader to recognise Israel’s sovereignty over areas in Judea and Sumeria that are vital to our security and central to our heritage…it calls for our ancient capital Jerusalem to remain united under Israel’s sovereignty…your plan does not uproot anyone from their homes, Israelis and Palestinians alike…it makes clear that the Palestinian refugee problem must be solved outside the state of Israel.”
Outside the conference hall, stacked with Trump and Netanyahu’s close supporters and with the Palestinian leadership nowhere to be seen, the reality on the ground was far different. As the Trump administration claimed to make history and the president blustered about “Giant Steps” and “New Dawns”, the reality in the Palestinian Territories - a headache which has plagued the conflict’s various negotiations and diktats at the top of the political hierarchy from Bush to Clinton - is already sinking a peaceful outcome.
Jerusalem has been a thorn in negotiations since the Israeli-Palestinian conflict began. The city sunk negotiations between Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat, the former leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and the Old City was the tinderbox which helped spark the second Palestinian rebellion in 2000 after Ariel Sharon inflamed locals when he visited the Al-Aqsa compound, one of the holiest Islamic sites. In 2018, the opening of the U.S embassy in Jerusalem - an event attended by Melanie Trump and Jared Kushner (Trump’s son in law) - was marred by the massacre and maiming of protesters along the Israeli-Gaza border. As the Covid-19 pandemic has swept the globe and forced entire countries into lockdown, contrary to Principle 4 of the ‘Peace to Prosperity’ plan which explicitly outlined a principle that ‘avoids forced population transfers of either Arab or Jews’ (p.11), East Jerusalem has been the scene of the peace plan’s intended still-birth.
Between January and May, B’tselem - the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories - recorded the demolition of 31 houses and non-residential structures without permits in East Jerusalem. 26 of these were demolished by their owners, a strategy to avoid fines and incurring demolition costs after receiving orders from the municipality. On the morning of 2nd June, the non-governmental organisation recorded the demolition of two more houses in East Jerusalem. The first, a two-storey building in Jabal al-Mukkaber neighbourhood, intended to house two Palestinian families (totalling ten people), was pancaked by bulldozer under close guard by Border Police officers. The second in Karm a-Sheikh, already home to a family of seven including five children, was brought down only an hour and a half after the first.
For many Israelis, the argument is that the Palestinian homes are being built illegally and that Palestinians frequently break zoning and planning laws. The bulldozers, therefore, are merely means of law enforcement and upholding the rule of law. However, the counter-argument is that the Jerusalem Municipality sabotage lawful constructions by Palestinians in East Jerusalem by throwing up an array of bureaucratic obstacles for planning and make applications and permits unaffordable for most families. ‘The Israeli authorities do everything within their power to delay the (planning) processes and ultimately thwart any detailed plans of significant scale, effectively preventing lawful construction by Palestinians.’
Both houses demolished in June were located in predominantly Palestinian neighbourhoods, a symbol of Israel’s continued seizure and disruption of the communities’ life in the east of the city. Border Police and Special Patrol Units have continued raids in East Jerusalem, arresting 17 Palestinians on 9th June while ransacking their family homes in neighbourhoods of Al-Tur, Wadi Al-Joz, Silwan, Issawiyeh and Jerusalem’s Old City. The arrests added to 845 Palestinians arrested in East Jerusalem this year as police step up their operations in al-‘Esawiyah, one of East Jerusalem’s poorest neighbourhoods.
The undercurrent of violence has been ever-present in the Covid-19 lockdown Arrests continue and the police frequently violate the medical guidelines of social distancing. Malek ‘Issa, an eight-year-old boy, was shot in the head by a sponge round by as he ran across the street after visiting the grocery. After two operations, Malek had his left eye removed. “It was the hardest decision my husband and I ever made. We approved the surgery,” said Malak’s mother, Sawsan to B’tselem. “When it was over, I told Malek he had only one eye left and that they would replace the other with a glass eye. He started screaming and crying: “I want my eye back! Who took my eye!?” Sponge-tipped plastic bullets are one fo the crowd control weapons Israeli police routinely use against Palestinians, and in late February and March, as the Covid-19 crisis deepened, Malek was one of three minors who were injured by Special Patrol Unit officers using plastic bullets.
On 30th May, as the United States was experiencing major protests against the murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis, Iyad Halaq, a 32-year-old autistic man, was shot with live ammunition. He was killed in East Jerusalem on his way to Elwyn Centre, a day centre for youth and adults with disabilities by Border Police. His caregiver, Warda, and Iyad were held at gunpoint as one police officer repeatedly asked: “Where is the pistol?”
Warda - who repeatedly told police Iyad had a disability before he was shot - was questioned, strip-searched, detained, and interrogated for several hours. The incident made headlines on social and international news, and Netanyahu and Gantz expressed regret over the incident. Both Palestinian and Israeli activists took to the streets demanding justice for Iyad Halaq. Shocking incidents like this have been systemic in East Jerusalem. In their latest report, ‘This is Jerusalem’, B’tselem illustrated how the police operations in the impoverished district have been escalating to reinforce their control of the east.
Compared to the United States, Brazil, and the United Kingdom, which have borne the brunt of Covid-19 virus-related deaths, the death toll in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, while tragic, has been smaller. 299 Israelis have died in the pandemic with over 18,000 cases recorded. According to Medical Aid for Palestinians, there are 653 cases across the West Bank and Gaza with 179 cases existing in East Jerusalem (due to a lack of testing, the number of cases in the Palestinian Territories could be higher). There have been five deaths in total, including the death of a 78-year-old woman from al-‘Esawiyah, Nawal Abu Hummus.
With medical shortages and a lack of staff and delays to the opening of testing facilities to Palestinian communities in Israel, there were fears that an outbreak would precipitate the collapse of the healthcare system in East Jerusalem. The Trump administration had slashed U.S aid to the Palestinians in 2018 meaning hospitals in the east of the city lost $25 million, a staggering loss. Charities and volunteers were forced to fill the vacuum to support impoverished communities and set up makeshift facilities. Two hotels, three hospitals (Al-Makassed Islamic Charity Hospital, St. Joseph Hospital, and Hadassah Hospital), with seventy-two beds and four testing facilities were available for 428,000 men, women, and children in a densely populated environment which made social distancing difficult to maintain. The European Union contributed $10 million in aid to support East Jerusalem’s response to Covid-19 to make up for budget cuts.
With the Palestinian Authority also unable to support East Jerusalem, the Palestinians in the annexed eastern part of the city were reliant on the Israeli authorities. A petition was filed to the High Court of Justice with demands that residents be tested for Covid-19, and the Israeli Health Ministry announced it would conduct 150,000 tests (according to The Jerusalem Post) in mid-April. Only days later, a makeshift clinic in Silwan, East Jerusalem was shut down by Israeli police, with Public Security Ministry citing that the Palestinian Authority had given the clinic medical supplies without their permission and were conducting unauthorised testing without coordinating with the Israelis. The incident sparked a backlash from Israel’s Arab Joint List Party with Ofer Cassif criticising the action by the Israeli police. “The police raid on the coronavirus testing centre in Silwan is inhumane and even stupid,” he said in a conversation with The Times of Israel. “Preventing the virus spread is a joint interest and if Israel doesn’t do the checks it must at least enable testing by others.”
Palestinians in East Jerusalem are in legal limbo and are second-class citizens who do not have the right to vote. Without citizenship, less time is devoted to the needs of the community. In 2016, a Vox report highlighted how ninety per cent of public resources were diverted to the west of the city, neglecting a third of the population in the east. This issue of neglect was raised by several pro-Palestinian outlets and spokespeople of charities supporting Covid-19 victims in East Jerusalem. The Israeli Health Ministry had been issuing website statements, social media posts, and released ‘Hamagen’, a smartphone app offering advice and raising awareness on Covid-19. The challenge for many Palestinians who could only access the Israeli Health Ministry’s app and follow their guidance was linguistic. Everything (initially) was in Hebrew, meaning that one-fifth of the Israeli population did not have quick access to ‘essential real-time coronavirus updates and public health information’ as Covid-19 cases and rates of infection were rapidly rising in February and March. Knesset Member Sami Abu Shehadeh from Joint List raised the issue in a letter to the Israeli Health Ministry.
The linguistic challenges, combined with the closure of a clinic, continued police operations in the poorest neighbourhoods demolition of homes in East Jerusalem, has reinforced perceptions that rather than using Covid-19 as an opportunity to coordinate with Palestinians within Israel and those living in the West Bank and Gaza, the Israelis are predominantly interested in reinforcing the status quo. The mechanics of discrimination and annexation of East Jerusalem have continued throughout Covid-19 and seeped into Israel’s response to the pandemic which, as Israeli human rights groups have highlighted, violated rights of equality and placed Israeli public health in ‘immediate danger’.
Police brutality and violence in East Jerusalem comes against the wider backdrop of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The ‘Peace and Prosperity’ plan has become a carte blanche for the annexation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Syrian Golan Heights, all under military occupation since 1967. Under the Covid-19 pandemic, violence has increased in the West Bank and Gaza has perpetually been on the brink of a major war and humanitarian catastrophe since the 2014 War.
If the West Bank, referred to by many Israelis by its biblical name ‘Judea and Samaria’, is annexed, it will all but end any hope of Palestinian statehood. Instead, a “one-state reality” will take hold where Palestinians are segregated, treated as second class citizens, are not allowed to vote, face discrimination when accessing state resources, and are targeted violently by police forces. Against the backdrop of increasingly discriminatory laws against Israeli Arabs and other minorities who are non-Jewish, it sets a dangerous precedent. East Jerusalem is the face of that future one-state solution, and the “New Dawn” promised by President Trump in his speech on ‘Peace to Prosperity’ is one which cements oppression, institutionalised discrimination, and naked segregation.