Judaization of Jerusalem
This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.Judaization of Jerusalem (Arabic: تهويد القدس, romanized: tahwīd al-Quds; Hebrew: יהוד ירושלים, romanized: yehud Yerushalayim) is the view that Israel has sought to transform the physical and demographic landscape of Jerusalem to enhance its Jewish character at the expense of its Muslim and Christian ones.
[citation needed] Judaization in territorial terms is characterized by Oren Yiftachel as a form of "ethnicization," which he argues is "the main force in shaping ethnocratic regimes".
[21] Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly in 2011, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "I often hear them accuse Israel of Judaizing Jerusalem.
[23] The Israeli government is attempting to Judaise East Jerusalem and maintain a Jewish majority against the demographic threat of a higher Palestinian birth rate.
To reverse this trend, they suggested expanding Jerusalem's border to the west (meaning the addition of Jewish population centres) or removing Arab neighbourhoods from the city's municipal area.
[25] Some of how the Israeli government is "Judaizing Jerusalem," according to Leilani Farha, are via the revocation of residency rights, absentee property laws, and tax policies.
In 2003, the Citizenship and Entry into Israel law was enacted, which denies spouses from the occupied Palestinian territories who are married to Israeli citizens or permanent residents (Jerusalem ID card holders) the right to acquire citizenship or residency status, and thus the opportunity to live with their partners in Israel and Jerusalem.
[24][27] Three days after the end of the Six-Day War, the Moroccan Quarter in the Old City was demolished by the Israeli army to improve access to the Western Wall.
[24] In peace negotiations, Israel has consistently demanded their legalization and proposed Israeli annexation of settlements outside Jerusalem to include them in the municipality.
In a speech on 8 November 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak said: "Maintaining our sovereignty over Jerusalem and boosting its Jewish majority has been our chief aims, and toward this end, Israel constructed large Jewish neighbourhoods in the eastern part of the city, which house 180,000 residents, and large settlements on the periphery of Jerusalem, like the city of Ma'ale Adumim and Giv'at Ze'ev.
[32] In an essay he coauthored with Haim Yaacobi, they write that "Israel would like the Palestinian residents of Jerusalem to see Judaization as 'inevitable,' a fact to be accepted passively as part of the modern development of the metropolis.
[34] According to Al Ghad, a Jordanian newspaper, the Israeli government elected in 2009 is soliciting tenders for the biggest settlement plans in West Bank.
[37] Surrounding Arab villages, who traditionally have close cultural and economic connections with Jerusalem, are cut off from the city by the Israeli West Bank barrier.
The efforts of fundamentalist Jewish groups who enjoyed government backing in attempts to take over Palestinian homes in the Muslim and Christian Quarters of the Old City between 1993 and 2000 are cited by Rubenberg as one example of the Judaization of Jerusalem.
Others, like Justus Weiner and Dan Diker, have objected to the entire notion, writing that the lack of any significant change to the demographic balance of the city undermines suggestions that it is government policy and renders any such discussions moot.
"[37] These policies, which aim to change Jerusalem demographically, socially, culturally and politically, are said by Rubenberg to have intensified after the initiation of the Oslo peace process in 1993.
[37] Moshe Ma'oz describes the policy of Israeli governments since 1967 as aimed at "maintain[ing] a unified Jerusalem; to Judaize or Israelize it, demographically and politically.
"[49] Drawing on the scholarship of Ian Lustick, Cecilia Alban writes of how the Israeli government has succeeded in establishing "new powerful concepts, images, and icons" to explain and legitimize its policies in Jerusalem.
The government's use of the term "reunification" to describe its occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967 is cited as one such example, which, in Alban's view, falsely implies that this area belonged to Israel in the past.
"[50] Steve Niva writes that Israeli policies calling for the Judaization of Jerusalem and the rest of historic Palestine in the 1970s augmented Muslim fears that Israel was an extension of Western imperialism in the region.
"[57] The ICEJ website notes that its embassy was founded "as an act of comfort and solidarity with Israel and the Jewish people in their claim to Jerusalem."
It also notes that the ICEJ administers several aid projects, engages in advocacy for Israel, and assists "aliyah to the Jewish homeland.
In 2008, Haaretz reported that at least 100 skeletons dating to c. 8th–9th centuries AD, in the Early Islamic period, found a few hundred meters from Al-Aqsa mosque, were removed and packed into crates before they could be examined by archaeological experts.
[62] According to Ian Lustick, Dore Gold, as an advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996, opposed any compromise with Palestinians on their claim to a capital in Jerusalem and advised a unilateral Judaization of the whole area.
[64] According to those who hold this view, while much of this has been accomplished through the violent expulsion of Arab residents during the wars of 1948 and 1967, the Judaization of Jerusalem has relied equally on measures taken during times of peace.
"[67] In a 2008 report, John Dugard, an independent investigator for the United Nations Human Rights Council, cites the Judaization of Jerusalem among many examples of Israeli policies "of colonialism, apartheid or occupation," that create a context in which Palestinian terrorism is "an inevitable consequence.
"[69] And in February 2010, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem was quoted in Israeli Media as saying "halting the ongoing Judaization of Jerusalem" would be a significant topic at an upcoming Arab League Summit.
According to the EU, demolitions are "illegal under international law, serve no obvious purpose, have severe humanitarian effects, and fuel bitterness and extremism."
[75] In 2011, EU envoys in the Middle East reported to Brussels that various Israeli policies amounted to "systematically undermining the Palestinian presence" in Jerusalem.
