Collaborators helped Jewish takeover of Jerusalem
Palestine-Israel, Politics, 6/24/1998

The average Palestinian on the street was not surprised at all at the statements made by Israeli Knesset member Saleh Salim on Tuesday in which he identified himself with killing Palestinian collaborators and land-dealers who sold real estate to Jews.

"What Salim said is what we all believe but are unable to utter openly because of the Israeli laws that prevent support for acts of murder," said one shop keeper in the Old City as he listened to the news of the Israeli police planning to question Salim for his statements. "Look, he is a Knesset member and enjoys a parliamentary immunity yet the police have no problem questioning him," he said. "Imagine what would happen to an ordinary Palestinian who openly calls for killing collaborators?"

For this shopkeeper, as well as for many other Palestinians, it was those collaborators and land dealers who made it possible for Jewish settlers to take over premises in the Old City in Jerusalem. Some even talk of the land deal fever that struck the West Bank in the 70s and 80s which led to selling vast areas of Arab lands via fraudulent deals. Those lands ended up being locations for new Jewish settlements. The impression among many in Jerusalem is that without the dirty role of the land dealers and collaborators it would have been extremely difficult for Jewish settlement groups to acquire property in the Old City of Jerusalem or elsewhere.

Last year, four land dealers were found dead in the West Bank and Israel blamed the Palestinian government's security branches for their murder. The Palestinian government officially denied any link to the killings. The murders stopped a while later. "I am surprised at the Palestinians. How is it that they have stopped the assassination of the treacherous land dealers, who harm their country and their people? They are collaborators. They are traitors to their people," said Salim, the Arab member of Knesset from the communist-affiliated Democratic Front for Peace and Equality. His statement came as he was touring, along with members of the Knesset interior committee, the area of Herod's Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem, where Jewish settlers had recently taken over a number of Arab houses.

This was the climax of a vocal confrontation between Arab MKs and MKs from the right, who had come to hear details from Antiquities Authority archeologists about the rescue dig being carried out at the site. Salim stressed that laws of history are well known, and elimination of collaborators has always been an integral part of every national movement struggle. "Even the Jewish underground terror groups in Mandatory Palestine, like the Palmach, the Haganah, the Etzel and the Lehi, eliminated Jewish collaborators," he said.

The fight over Jerusalem has always been the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel has not spared any effort to Judaize the city and change its demographic structure in favor of its Jewish inhabitants. The Jewish settlers, as such, have become the spearhead of the Israeli policy in Jerusalem. Encouraged and protected by all Israeli governments, Labor or Likud alike, those settlers have staged a campaign to take over Arab property in the Old City of Jerusalem and displace the Palestinian citizens of the city.

But as their efforts increased, so did Arab and Palestinian opposition and resistance. Palestinians were involved in attacks on Jewish settlers and the latter would return fire by further takeover of Arab property. At every site where a Jewish settler is killed in Jerusalem, his fellow settlers would erect a memorial site and take over the adjacent house of shop, thus inviting more attacks by angry Palestinians.

In a move to safeguard the security of Jewish settlers in the Old City of Jerusalem, Israeli police minister Avigdor Kahalani approved on Tuesday a grandiose security plan at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. According to the plan, 200 video cameras will be posted in the alleyways of the Old City, which will record events there 24 hours a day. The purpose of the cameras is to assist in preventing attacks and apprehending Palestinian assailants. The plan includes an increase of technical devices, manpower and buildings. A special chapter was dedicated to the cooperation with civilian bodies involved in guarding Jewish settlers within the Muslim Quarter of the Old City.

Other elements of the plan include placing sophisticated video cameras that are capable of day and night photography in the alleys and on roofs. The police will also set up a new control center at the Old City police station next to Jaffa Gate where photographs are to be received and forces to be dispatched. Permanent forces are also to be posted permanently in the Old City.

At the Western (Wailing) Wall, the police plan to install advanced technological devices in order to turn the plaza in front of it into one of the most fortified areas in the Old City. Bullet-proof rotating doors and x-ray machines and metal detectors will also be placed at all entrances to the Wailing Wall and new special devices for detecting explosives will also be made available to policemen guarding the area.

The plan also spoke of sniper posts to be erected on areas commanding the Western Wall plaza in order to be used in days of unrest between Palestinians and Jews. After he presented the plan to his senior police officers, Kahalani said he would do everything "to prevent harm to Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem. In order to do so, there is an immediate need for an increase in the presence and level of activity of the police in East Jerusalem."

Previous Stories:
  OIC FM's to convene emergency session   (6/23/1998)
  Qurei: Israel must return every inch of occupied Jerusalem   (6/23/1998)
  Battle over lands: blackmail, extortion and murder   (10/14/1997)

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