The humanization of the issue of Jerusalem is tantamount to
dedicating it in favor of Israel. Very few Israelis can say they speak in favor
of a peaceful settlement with the Palestinians on the basis of the return of
all occupied territories including East Jerusalem for peace. They are almost
unanimously in agreement that Jerusalem should be the so-called “united capital
of Israel.”
اضافة اعلان
If the issue is minimized to basic rights of praying and
worshipping in
Al-Aqsa Mosque, then Israel will end up annexing de jure and de
facto the whole of Jerusalem, irrespective of its area. Thus, the whole
Jerusalem issue should remain, as Palestinian protestors are asking, an
occupied Palestinian territory and should be as such the capital of an
independent Palestinian State.
During the 1991-1994 peace negotiations with Israel, the
term “independent and sovereign Palestinian State” was never used by the
Israeli delegation, which was headed by the sly Israeli head of delegation,
Elyakim Rubinstein. Their favored term was “autonomia” or autonomy. The
occupied West Bank was referred to as “Judea and Samaria,” “West Bank,” or
“disputed territory.”
In a way, the bloody and inhuman events which have been
taking place in Jerusalem since the beginning of Ramadan should remind the
world at large that the dual-aspect view of Jerusalem is clearly upheld by the
Palestinians and all Arab people. The first is that Jerusalem is an occupied
territory which has been under Arab control over the last 14 centuries, and it
was taken peacefully in accordance with the agreement between the church and
the second Caliph Omar in the year 638 AD. No mythology is going to change that truth.
The second aspect is that Al-Quds Al-Sharif (966,000sq.m.),
where all holy places of the three monotheistic religions reside, should be
under Palestinian control with the Palestinians issuing assurances guaranteeing
and coordinating freedom of worship and festivities to all equally.
A Palestinian facing Israeli apartheid considers himself as
the last wall separating freedom of worship from apartheid and myopic
self-aggrandized notion of “God’s chosen people”.
Sheikh Jarrah is an Arab Palestinian quarter of Jerusalem.
The lands where their houses are built are theirs. Even if we were to consider
the Israeli claim that some of the lands there were bought by a Jewish entity
in the 19th century, then produce the evidence. Palestinians can produce
unlimited testimonials that many Israeli Jewish properties are built on Arab
Palestinian lands without Israelis ever buying them.
Let us see positive action taken by the Israeli government
to demolish any of these houses, or let us see an Israeli court issue a verdict
to that effect.
You want to follow the rule that houses built on lands owned
by others should be demolished, then make it applicable to all Palestinian
territories including what is now called “Israel.” That is fair and square.
Until then, Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock, Sheikh Jarrah,
Al-Isawiyyeh, Selwan, and other areas are Palestinian and Muslim and Arab.
Anything else is nothing but legal gibberish uttered by smart-alecky
lawyers.
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