- The new plan updates older ones, going back to the first,
what Israeli historian Ilan Pappe documented in his 2006 book, "The
Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine," on David Ben-Gurion's Plan D (Dalet
in Hebrew), his final master plan following Plans A, B and C, what Palestinians
call the Nakba, the catastrophe, commemorated annually to never forget.
-
- By bombarding and besieging villages and population centers,
destroying communities, and expelling or killing hundreds of thousands
of Palestinians, it planned an exclusive Jewish state, excluding Arabs
by any means, including mass-murder, dispossession, and persecution, ongoing
to this day, what Palestinians heroically resist.
-
- It took six months to complete, expelling or slaughtering
about 800,000 people, and destroying 531 villages and 11 urban neighborhoods
in Tel-Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem and other cities. It was barbarous ethnic
cleansing, Palestinians shown no mercy, including women and children, yet
it was just the beginning, much more yet to come, including new ethnic
cleaning plans.
-
- Old and New Master Plans
-
- The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) is an
Israeli policy research organization, its president Dore Gold, a notorious
right-wing extremist, hostile to democratic principles and Palestinian
rights.
-
- It's recent report is titled "Demography, Geopolitics,
and the Future of Israel's Capital: Jerusalem's Proposed Master Plan,"
explaining that on October 7, 2008, the District Planning and Construction
Commission for the Jerusalem region proposed one, approved by Mayor Nir
Barkat, then revised "to create and preserve a stable Jewish majority
in the unified capital," assure the city always stays unified, and
follows Ben-Gurion's idea:
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- to "bring Jews to eastern Jerusalem at any cost.
We must settle tens of thousands of Jews in a brief time. Jews will agree
to settle in eastern Jerusalem even in shacks. We cannot await the construction
of orderly neighborhoods. The essential thing is that Jews will be there."
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- In large numbers they're displacing Palestinians, destroying
their homes, seizing their land, and fulfilling Ben-Gurion's dream to make
Israel exclusively Jewish, Jerusalem its capital.
-
- The city's 1968 Master Plan recommended accelerated Jewish
population growth. In 1973, Prime Minister Golda Meir planned to increase
it by 3.7% by 1982. Various other plans followed.
-
- Master Plan 2000 aimed to preserve a Jewish majority,
its planners apprehensive about Arab population growth. As a result, they
proposed "intervention tools" to counter it by:
-
- "a sufficient supply of housing by building new
neighborhoods and reinforcing and increasing the density of veteran Jewish
(ones), as well as adding places of employment and services on a quantitative
and qualitative basis."
-
- The June 2009 Arbel Report proposed annexing part of
Ramat Rahel, located on a hilltop halfway between Jerusalem's Old City
and Bethlehem, to accommodate a growing Jewish population.
-
- A July 2009 Master Plan for Transportation in Jerusalem
revealed 13,300 newly approved housing units and another 15,000 at other
stages of planning, suggesting an urgency to complete them and add more
based on population growth forecasts.
-
- Planned land seizures weren't mentioned. However, Jerusalem's
Master Plan 2000 said the following:
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- "The most severe problem in eastern Jerusalem is
the absence of a system to resolve land ownership. This problem, in combination
with a deliberate policy by both nationalist and criminal elements, has
led to a huge volume of illegal construction (without required permits)
on lands that were intended for public purposes and a takeover of privately
owned lands....In order to solve the problem, a special judicial system
should be established in the municipality to regulate the registration
of land ownership" to assure Jews are preferentially treated.
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- Jerusalem Master Plan 2010
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- On June 28, Haaretz writers Akiva Eldar and Nir Hasson
headlined, "Jerusalem master plan: Expansion of Jewish enclaves across
the city," saying it calls for expanding Jewish neighborhoods in East
Jerusalem, "a move largely based on construction on privately owned
Arab property," meaning Palestinians will be removed to accommodate
them.
-
- On July 10, Haaretz writer Don Futterman headlined, "The
Jerusalem Master Plan for destruction," saying it plans "to relocate
as many Arabs as possible to the margins of the municipal boundaries; to
promote overcrowding (in their areas) in the hope (they) will leave the
city of their own accord," develop their own neighborhoods, encouraged
by "accelerate(d) evictions and house demolitions."
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- "The plan plays into both the settler-led campaign
to (de-Arabize) the Old City, and the government's efforts to make sure
Jerusalem will never be the capital of a Palestinian state...." Will
it work? Before he died, Edward Said said the following:
-
- "There is no way for Israel to get rid of Palestinians.
(They) shar(e) the land that has thrust (them) together (and must do it
jointly) in a truly democratic way, with equal rights for (all) citizen(s),"
Jews, Arabs, Christians, and others. No master plan will prevent it,
-
- Yet Israel's new one includes accelerated home demolitions
and land seizures, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein telling the High Court
that the government plans to apply the 1950 Absentees' Property Law (ABL),
authorizing the state to seize abandoned properties. At risk are thousands
of acres worth billions of dollars, land legally held by Arabs.
-
- Haaretz writer Akiva Eldar said:
-
- "The state intends to assume control over properties
of people who moved to 'enemy states' during the War of Independence (now
refugees denied the right of return), as well as structures in East Jerusalem,"
belonging to West Bank and Gaza residents.
-
- They'll be used for new Jewish developments besides others
underway or planned, sparking protests met with attacks and arrests, a
recent Silwan one assaulted with live fire, tear gas, and percussion grenades.
One Palestinian lost an eye. A woman miscarriaged from tear gas, another
also after her home was invaded.
-
- Five Palestinians were arrested, including a 12-year
old child. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, Secretary General of al-Mubadara Palestinian
National Initiative, accused Israel of attempting to Judaize East Jerusalem
with "bulldozers, the expansion of the settlement units, (and) changing
the demographic composition of the city to favor" Jews over Arabs,
the final plan to make Jerusalem exclusively Jewish by any means.
-
- Israel acts ruthlessly, does what it pleases with no
regard for the law, internal or external pressure, or the rights and needs
of indigenous Palestinians, being systematically removed for Jewish expansion,
a Palestinian official saying it's to "decapitate" East Jerusalem's
Arab identity by building thousands of Jewish-only apartments and homes
on Arab-owned land.
-
- They're being squeezed into narrower spaces, currently
confined to about 13% of the city, the rest seized since 1967 when East
Jerusalem was occupied. Palestinian Authority (PA) official Ghassan Al-Khatib
called it "more than a provocation. It is actually a decapitation
of the peace process. (It won't) withstand the reported plan to expand
Jewish settlements in Jerusalem." Others say it's a prescription for
resistance and violence. A recently released blueprint calling for expanding
Jewish neighborhoods on privately owned Palestinian land assures it, especially
if as widespread as envisioned to Judaize the entire city.
-
- On July 20, the International Middle East Media Center's
Brian Ennis headlined, "Palestinians in East Jerusalem Feeling Abandoned,"
given the "specter of more housing demolition and (Judaization) of
East Jerusalem," the international community doing nothing to prevent
it, or help Israeli Arabs - Israel's Blacks and Latinos, lawlessly persecuted,
shamelessly denied their rights.
-
- Targeting Israeli Arabs
-
- On July 20, London Observer writer Harriet Sherwood headlined,
"Jaffa's Arab haven of coexistence resists influx of Israeli hardliners,"
saying:
-
- Its Ajami neighborhood, south of Tel-Aviv, has seen "every
stone and blade of grass" bitterly contested, now "the centre
of a struggle that touches on social, religious, nationalist, economic
and legal questions and which - whatever the outcome - will inevitably
result in further strife."
-
- Until recently, it was one of Israel's few areas where
Jews and Muslims coexisted for decades, though never easily. However, destabilization
and strife threatens to erupt if a 20-apartment development is approved,
an Israeli High Court ruling imminent, the result of a case brought by
the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), claiming it discriminates
against Arabs and non-religious Jews in favor of Zionist extremists demanding
it go ahead to create "a religious community free from non-Jewish
and secular influences," their own exclusive gated community.
-
- Historian Sami Abu Shehadeh said if they succeed, "the
(neighborhood) will be polarized. (People who) say Jaffa is a model of
coexistence will be silenced." Judaization will assure it and encourage
more in Israel, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
-
- He called the whole neighborhood "a construction
site. We - the Arabs - are being forced out again, but we have nowhere
else to go." Building permits aren't granted, and locals say 500 families
have been issued eviction or demolition orders. Others got huge fines.
The entire Arab population faces an uncertain future, like other Israeli
Arabs, not wanted, denied their rights, and being systematically pressured
to make way for Jews.
-
- Another way is a proposed measure requiring they pledge
loyalty to a "Jewish and Democratic state," mainly Palestinian
men and women who marry Israeli citizens (an estimated 25,000), then seek
citizenship on the basis of family reunification, the latter already denied
without Interior Ministry approval, for most impossible to get.
-
- On July 19, Jerusalem Post writer Herb Keinon said the
measure hadn't yet passed, contrary to other accounts. He called it a way
to "deter Palestinians from asking for citizenship." The government
said it's only for "illegal residents," not Israeli Arabs, but
if extremist Yisrael Beitneinu party officials prevail, including David
Rotem, Chairman of the Knesset Constitution and Avigdor Lieberman, Foreign
Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, all Israeli Arabs will have to pledge
loyalty to a "Jewish, Zionist, and democratic State," its emblems
and values, and perform military or equivalent service as a condition for
a national ID card signifying citizenship and right to stay in the country
legally.
-
- Final Comments
-
- Palestinians and Israeli Arabs have reason to worry,
Haaretz writer Amira Hass providing more evidence in her July 21 article
headlined, "IDF destroys West Bank village after declaring it a military
zone," saying:
-
- The army demolished an entire Jordan Valley village after
declaring it within a closed military zone, 55 structures and 120 farmers,
workers, and their families left without homes in Farasiya. Earlier the
Civil Administration cut off their water, and before that the military
destroyed a distribution pipe from a nearby stream, what residents built
for irrigation.
-
- Last year, they were prohibited from connecting to wells
belonging to Mekorot, Israel's National Water Company, forcing them to
use saltwater for their livestock and buy expensive private water for themselves,
what most can't afford.
-
- B'Tselem photographer Atef Abu, arriving hours after
the demolition, said "mattresses, pipes and broken furniture were
lying on the ground in the debris."
-
- On July 18, 10 Bardala village families (north of Farasiya)
also got demolition orders, a farmer with 300 sheep "told to leave
in 24 hours or his herd would be confiscated."
-
- In Israel and throughout the Territories, millions of
Palestinians are endangered, their lives and livelihoods threatened by
Israel's longstanding plan to Judaize all "Eretz Yisrael," no
matter that indigenous Arabs lived there for centuries and have legal right
to their homes and property.
-
- No wonder Haaretz writer Gideon Levy sees Israel "sinking
into a strident, nationalistic atmosphere and darkness is beginning to
cover everything, (evidenced by) jingoism, ruthlessness and vengeance,
(its extremist voices) now expressing its heart," Palestinians feeling
the affects, collectively punished for being Muslims under Jewish domination
- racist, lawless and merciless, for Levy, a "sign of how we have
lost our senses and humanity," for historians, a prescription for
self-destruction.
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the
Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays
at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs
are archived for easy listening.
-
- http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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