Law enforcement against Jerusalem Arabs only. Jews exempted
Palestine-Israel, Politics, 1/8/2000

Jews living in West Jerusalem have built more illegal houses and constructions than Arabs living in Occupied Jerusalem but the municipal council decided to penalize Palestinian offenders and rarely touched any of the Jewish law-breakers.

Ehud Olmert, the mayor of West Jerusalem, told his city council members that most of the illegal building was detected in West Jerusalem. Out of the 1880 illegal constructions found in all of Jerusalem, admitted Olmert, 1381 were in West Jerusalem. However, he told his council members, the city decided to punish the Palestinians in East Jerusalem. Out of the 141 demolition orders issued by the municipality only five were in West Jerusalem and the rest were in Occupied East Jerusalem, said Olmert.

Last year, municipality inspectors raided a number of neighborhoods, Arab and Jewish, in Jerusalem looking for illegal construction. At the end of the campaign, demolition orders were issued mostly against houses built in Shufat and Beit Hanina in Occupied Jerusalem. City council member Arnon Yekutieli, of the left wing MERETZ movement, said that he knew of at least eight instances where city inspectors discovered illegal construction in the Jewish religious neighborhood of Beit Yisrael but decided not to react. "It seems that law and order are only enforced on a partial segment of the population of Jerusalem and not on all its residents," said Yekutieli. When contacted for a comment on the report, city hall spokesman Hagai Elias, refused to answer any of the questions related to the issue.

Since the occupation of Jerusalem in 1967, Israel has issued thousands of demolition orders of houses in East Jerusalem with the aim of minimizing the Palestinian presence in the city. The first round of demolition orders hit the Moroccan Quarters in the Old City of Jerusalem where thousands of houses were destroyed and the whole area was later razed to become what is known today as the Western Wall Plaza. And when no legal action could be seen against Palestinians in Occupied Jerusalem, Jewish settlers have stepped in to complete the job. By means of falsified documents, settlers have taken over numerous houses in the Old City of Jerusalem and its surroundings. Most recently, Palestinian security forces that operate clandestinely in East Jerusalem uncovered an office operated by the settlers with the objectives of taking over Arab houses.

According to reports in the Hebrew press over the weekend, settler movements in Jerusalem have lately set up fake real estate offices and published ads in the local Palestinian press claiming they were helping Palestinians living in Jerusalem while in fact they were looking for unmanned property in Jerusalem so they could take it over. Those offices were in contact with Palestinians who sought humanitarian aid. In the process of answering questionnaires prepared by those settlers, the Palestinians have innocently volunteered information about properties and lands they own in Jerusalem. Press reports last week said that Palestinian security apparatuses have discovered those offices and have immediately afterwards prepared lists of names of suspected collaborators and land dealers who worked jointly and closely with the settlers. The lists, reports said, included land dealers, lawyers and brokers.

One of the fake offices that Ateret Cohanim, a leading settlement group in Jerusalem, was opened just a few minutes walk from the Old City of Jerusalem near the New Gate. Palestinian so-called

Previous Stories:
  Amnesty condemns demolition of Palestinian houses   (12/8/1999)
  Another house demolished in Jerusalem   (10/26/1999)
  House demolition disrupts euphoria of safe passage opening   (10/26/1999)

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