Jerusalem Day

Yesterday was Jerusalem Day, when 10 000 Israelis walk through the Damascus gate into the Old City. Jerusalem Day is a celebration of the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967, when the whole city came under the control of Israel. It is important for the Israelis, as it ensured access to the holiest site in Judaism. In a commemoration ceremony Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "Israel without Jerusalem is like a body without a heart …It will never be divided again."

On the same day, one of the biggest newspapers in Israel, Haaretz, announced that 78% of the population of East Jerusalem lives in poverty. The Jerusalem Post called the day a day of celebration and wrote that “Jerusalem, Israel’s largest city, was home to 801,000 at the end of 2011. Never before has Jerusalem thrived so impressively. It should not be a surprise that it is the most desired place to live among new immigrants, according to a Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies report released on Jerusalem Day.”

The next day Haaretz report on how a ‘Palestinian attacks IDF soldier during Jerusalem Day celebration on the West Bank.’  What I experienced on the streets of Jerusalem was very different. Together with my colleagues from EAPPI, we stand outside the Damascus gate and observe the demonstration. The practice of the right to freedom of expression looks very different for Palestinian than for the Israeli, from where we stand in the middle of the street, holding on to a fence and trying to observe activities on both sides.

On one side there are young Israeli men, singing, dancing and cheering, controlled by hired in security guards in yellow vests, without guns. On the other side of the street stands the Palestinians, and next to them Israeli Border Police, all carrying several weapons each. At one point the Palestinian crowd tosses white balloons with the Palestinian flag up in the air, and in the next the mounted police charge into the masses. We observe how a young Palestinian boy in a red baseball cap is beaten up by the soldiers, whilst the young Israeli boys are left unharmed.

Later on we move into the Old City, to observe as thousands of Israelis walk from the Damascus gate to the Western wall. They are waving flags, fathers are carrying small children on their shoulders, and it is an ocean of white and blue. Suddenly one of the young Israeli men celebrating Jerusalem Day attacks an undercover police, believing him to be Palestinian. The police is dressed in civilian clothes to look like one of the Palestinian shopkeepers in the Souk, just for the purpose of blending in and also to ensure that those intent to be in violent confrontations with the Palestinians are identified and stopped. They young man is immediately stopped, and after a little while pushed back into the crowd. A shop keeper says: “they do that to see who are the aggressive ones, who wants’ to cause trouble for the Palestinians.”

To celebrate the unification of Jerusalem is a good thing. If there could be one city living in peace, where everyone had the same rights to access their holy sites, to demonstrate and to wealth –then there would be something to celebrate. But according to International Law, and the UNSCR 478, the annexation of East Jerusalem is not legal, and therefore most countries in the world do not recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. B’tselem an Israeli peace organization informs that the permanent residents of East Jerusalem have substantially different rights than their West Jerusalem counterparts. 

The position of the UN was stated clearly when the General Assembly revisited the question of Jerusalem at its fifty-fifth session. “In a resolution adopted on 1 December 2000, the Assembly determined that the decision of Israel to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem was illegal and, therefore, null and void. The Assembly also deplored the transfer by some States of their diplomatic missions to Jerusalem in violation of Security Council resolution 478 (1980).”

There can therefore not be considered to be a Jerusalem Day for us to celebrate.