16 - 22 August 2001
Issue No.547
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 16 - 22 August 2001 Issue No.547 |
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"What was, will no longer be"
Israel's occupation of Orient House and other Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem took all by surprise. It shouldn't have. Graham Usher reports from Jerusalem
With grim inevitability, last Thursday, a Hamas suicide bomber --23-year old Izzedin Masri from Akaba near Jenin -- "succeeded" in detonating himself inside a packed pizza restaurant in the heart of West Jerusalem. Fifteen Israeli civilians were killed, including six children, and 130 were injured. And one of West Jerusalem's busiest junctions was left with a slick of blood, glass, tangled wire and human body parts.
Palestinians braced themselves for Israel's long deferred devastating strike, as the streets of Gaza, Ramallah, Hebron and Nablus emptied in a flash.
It did not come. True, Israeli tanks rolled a kilometre into Gaza City to bulldoze a Palestinian Authority police post and F16s jet unloaded three one-tonne bombs on the PA's main West Bank civilian police headquarters in Ramallah, reducing both to rubble but mercifully causing no casualties.
But the real response was political, and mounted on the most explosive terrain. In a pre-dawn raid on Friday, Israel occupied seven Palestinian national institutions in East Jerusalem, including the PA's Jerusalem governor's house in Abu Dis and Orient House, the Palestinians de facto political headquarters in East Jerusalem and symbol of their aspirations to sovereignty in the city.
Clashes with Israeli policemen in front of Orient House last Saturday. Centre and on the ground are the daughter and son of the late Faisal Al-Husseini, PLO official for Jerusalem (photo: AFP)
On Friday morning that symbol had an Israeli flag fluttering above its famous arched gable and Israeli police, special forces and undercover squads barring every access road to it. The flag was later removed: the military occupation remains in place.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said PA activity in the seven institutions was an "infringement of Israeli sovereignty" in the city. He further accused this "foreign entity" (the PA) of using Orient House and the Abu Dis governor's building to store "weapons", conduct "torture" and plan "murder", all backed up with footage on prime-time Israeli TV, showing Israeli police "discovering" a pistol in one of Orient house's offices.
The Palestinian leadership charged the closures were in flagrant violation of a 1993 letter from Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to his then Norwegian counterpart, Jurgen Holst, pledging Israel's commitment to "maintain and develop" Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem. PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat reminded Jerusalem's diplomatic corps on Saturday that Yasser Arafat had conditioned his signature to the Oslo accords on receipt of that letter.
Sharon has now abrogated the pledge, perhaps permanently. At Israel's cabinet meeting on Sunday he made it clear there would be no return to the political status quo ante in Jerusalem. "What was, will no longer be," he vowed.
Sharon did not launch his pre-emptive strike in Jerusalem because of what was happening in East Jerusalem or indeed on the streets of West Jerusalem. He struck because of what was not happening in Orient House. "With the death of Faisal Husseini Israel saw it had a golden opportunity to exploit the Palestinian political vacuum in Jerusalem," says Madhi Abdel Hadi, a Jerusalem-based Palestinian analyst.
The breach has been filled with force. Since Husseini's death on 31 May, Israel has embarked on a new wave of house demolitions in East Jerusalem, announced further land confiscation and, on 17 July, banned a memorial service for Husseini at Orient House.
These were all dry runs for the closures on Friday and, with them, to any vision of shared Palestinian-Israeli sovereignty in the city, even in its most inadequate, Camp David form. "Israel has moved in to tell Palestinians it will no longer tolerate their institutional presence and political activities in East Jerusalem," says Abdel Hadi.
And, admit Orient House sources scathingly, it was largely "pushing at an open door". In the two months since Husseini passed away Arafat has done nothing to reconstitute a new Palestinian political leadership in Jerusalem, preferring for the Orient House to be run by a committee that is often divided within itself and always bereft of power. For East Jerusalem's 220,000 Palestinians and 200 Palestinian institutions this is simply not good enough.
"Palestinians in Jerusalem need a face, an address and a sense of where Jerusalem now stands on the Palestinian national agenda. In other words, they need a political leadership they can trust. Currently they don't have one," says a source.
The upshot of this disarray was seen Friday. One hundred-fifty Israeli police and special force rolled over Orient House's seven Palestinian guards like a razor through cotton, hauling off documents, files and equipment before the city awoke. In the days since Palestinian demonstrations started rarely more than a 100- strong protestors have tried to breach the Israeli phalanx around Orient House.
Sterner responses will be needed. On Monday Palestinians observed a general strike throughout the occupied territories in protest at Orient House's occupation and the other closures in East Jerusalem. Significantly Arafat's Fatah movement called on Palestinians and Arabs across the region to engage in similar actions. But all are aware demonstrations and solidarity is no longer sufficient. Action is necessary.
"If Jerusalem is so important to the Arabs, why doesn't Egypt and Jordan shut down their Israeli embassies in reprisal for Israel's closure of Orient House?" asks one of its Palestinian employees. "Then Israel would take notice."
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