Israeli government effort since 1967 to transform East Jerusalem into a Jewish city

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

Headline shortened for space

Root cause of current crisis is Israeli government effort since 1967 to transform East Jerusalem into a Jewish city

http://mondoweiss.net/2014/11/government-transform-jerusalem

The Institute for Middle East Understanding conducted the following interview with Ingrid Jaradat Gassner on the current situation in Jerusalem. Jaradat Gassner is the Coordinator of International Advocacy and Public Relations for the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem. The interview was posted on the IMEU site here.

Q – Tensions in Jerusalem, particularly in the eastern, occupied half of the city, have been extremely high since the summer. How would you describe the current situation?

IJG – “The current situation in East Jerusalem is one of acute political and inter-communal crisis. It is characterized by increasingly aggressive and provocative actions of Jewish nationalist-religious fundamentalist groups, and overt support by the Israeli government of these groups and their efforts to impose more Jewish settlements in the midst of Palestinian neighborhoods in and around the Old City and to change the status quo and obtain (partial) control of the Al Aqsa (Noble Sanctuary) compound. The declared decision of the Israeli government to crush Palestinian protests by means of brutal force is reminiscent of Israel’s ‘iron fist’ and ‘breaking bones’ policy of the first intifada. This policy has resulted in a deep sense of insult and humiliation among all sectors of East Jerusalem’s Palestinian population, including among youth and the un-politicized.”

Read on...

[oberliner]

1. Jordan's efforts before 1967 to transform East Jerusalem into a non-Jewish city

Jordanian era

In 1948 during the Arab-Israeli War, its population of about 2,000 Jews was besieged, and forced to leave en masse. Colonel Abdullah el Tell, local commander of the Jordanian Arab Legion, with whom Mordechai Weingarten negotiated the surrender terms, described the destruction of the Jewish Quarter, in his Memoirs (Cairo, 1959):

"... The operations of calculated destruction were set in motion.... I knew that the Jewish Quarter was densely populated with Jews who caused their fighters a good deal of interference and difficulty.... I embarked, therefore, on the shelling of the Quarter with mortars, creating harassment and destruction.... Only four days after our entry into Jerusalem the Jewish Quarter had become their graveyard. Death and destruction reigned over it.... As the dawn of Friday, May 28, 1948, was about to break, the Jewish Quarter emerged convulsed in a black cloud - a cloud of death and agony."
—Yosef Tekoah (Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations) quoting Abdullah el-Tal.[10]

The Jordanian commander is reported to have told his superiors: "For the first time in 1,000 years not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter. Not a single building remains intact. This makes the Jews' return here impossible."[11][12] The Hurva Synagogue, originally built in 1701, was blown up by the Jordanian Arab Legion. During the nineteen years of Jordanian rule, a third of the Jewish Quarter's buildings were demolished.[13] According to a complaint Israel made to the United Nations, all but one of the thirty-five Jewish houses of worship in the Old City were destroyed. The synagogues were razed or pillaged and stripped and their interiors used as hen-houses or stables.[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Quarter_(Jerusalem)

[Scootaloo]

2. Two wrongs make a right, as always n/t