ktlight
4th June 2011, 07:01
FYI:
As thousands of right-wing Israeli settlers descended on Jerusalem to celebrate the so-called unification of the city this week, Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem were confronted by extreme provocations and the stark reality that their city remains very much divided.
"My shop was broken into a couple of times, a few times, when I’m here on Jerusalem Day," explained East Jerusalem resident Basem Hallak, who has owned an antique shop in the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City for 25 years.
"You will see kids – by the meaning of kids (I mean) from the age of 16, 17 – and what they are doing is carrying machine guns, carrying guns, walking like, 'This is our city and you (Palestinians) are out of the game. You are out, completely out’," Hallak told IPS.
Jerusalem Day is an annual event that commemorates the "reunification" of Jerusalem in 1967, when Israeli forces captured East Jerusalem from Jordanian control during the Six Days War.
The international community doesn’t recognise the Israeli government’s claims to East Jerusalem. Still, Israel has maintained the position that Jerusalem cannot be divided in the advent of a peace agreement with the Palestinian leadership, which aims to make East Jerusalem the capital of a future Palestinian state.
On Wednesday Jun. 1, thousands of right-wing Israelis, including a large number of Israeli settlers from the occupied West Bank, participated in the annual Flag March through East Jerusalem for Jerusalem Day.
Waving Israeli flags, dancing and singing, participants marched from the hotbed Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, an area in which extremist Israeli settlers have taken over Palestinian homes and continue to threaten residents – through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City on their way to the Wailing Wall. It was reported that approximately 3,000 Israeli police officers, including border police and undercover units, were on patrol to secure the march.
The municipality of Jerusalem contributed 100,000 shekels (approximately 30,000 dollars) to pay for the event, which Palestinian Jerusalemites – who number approximately 300,000 residents – viewed as an extreme act of provocation.
"I remember from the first time they started with a very small number (of marchers) and then every year it started getting bigger and bigger. They started blocking all the streets, all the roads, isolating the city of Jerusalem, making the city of Jerusalem under the Israeli authority just for the settlers, for the really fanatic Israelis," Hallak, who lives on the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem, told IPS.
"This is all under the protection of the soldiers and the police; (the marchers) can do whatever they want. They can burn shops, they can burn cars and this is what they have been doing for the last good number of years."
He explained that every year, Israeli police and soldiers pressure him to close his shop early on Jerusalem Day, but that his decision to remain open is a form of resistance. "It’s resisting because they want to clear us from the city, like we don’t exist anymore in the city," Hallak said.
source for more to read
http://uruknet.info/?p=m78334&hd=&size=1&l=e
As thousands of right-wing Israeli settlers descended on Jerusalem to celebrate the so-called unification of the city this week, Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem were confronted by extreme provocations and the stark reality that their city remains very much divided.
"My shop was broken into a couple of times, a few times, when I’m here on Jerusalem Day," explained East Jerusalem resident Basem Hallak, who has owned an antique shop in the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City for 25 years.
"You will see kids – by the meaning of kids (I mean) from the age of 16, 17 – and what they are doing is carrying machine guns, carrying guns, walking like, 'This is our city and you (Palestinians) are out of the game. You are out, completely out’," Hallak told IPS.
Jerusalem Day is an annual event that commemorates the "reunification" of Jerusalem in 1967, when Israeli forces captured East Jerusalem from Jordanian control during the Six Days War.
The international community doesn’t recognise the Israeli government’s claims to East Jerusalem. Still, Israel has maintained the position that Jerusalem cannot be divided in the advent of a peace agreement with the Palestinian leadership, which aims to make East Jerusalem the capital of a future Palestinian state.
On Wednesday Jun. 1, thousands of right-wing Israelis, including a large number of Israeli settlers from the occupied West Bank, participated in the annual Flag March through East Jerusalem for Jerusalem Day.
Waving Israeli flags, dancing and singing, participants marched from the hotbed Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, an area in which extremist Israeli settlers have taken over Palestinian homes and continue to threaten residents – through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City on their way to the Wailing Wall. It was reported that approximately 3,000 Israeli police officers, including border police and undercover units, were on patrol to secure the march.
The municipality of Jerusalem contributed 100,000 shekels (approximately 30,000 dollars) to pay for the event, which Palestinian Jerusalemites – who number approximately 300,000 residents – viewed as an extreme act of provocation.
"I remember from the first time they started with a very small number (of marchers) and then every year it started getting bigger and bigger. They started blocking all the streets, all the roads, isolating the city of Jerusalem, making the city of Jerusalem under the Israeli authority just for the settlers, for the really fanatic Israelis," Hallak, who lives on the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem, told IPS.
"This is all under the protection of the soldiers and the police; (the marchers) can do whatever they want. They can burn shops, they can burn cars and this is what they have been doing for the last good number of years."
He explained that every year, Israeli police and soldiers pressure him to close his shop early on Jerusalem Day, but that his decision to remain open is a form of resistance. "It’s resisting because they want to clear us from the city, like we don’t exist anymore in the city," Hallak said.
source for more to read
http://uruknet.info/?p=m78334&hd=&size=1&l=e