Another Sovereignty tour was held, this time in Jerusalem. The challenges of Israeli governance in the city are rising and increasing: demographics, illegal Arab building, involvement of hostile elements and attempts at an Arab political takeover of the city.
The Sovereignty Movement held another Sovereignty tour, this time in honor of Jerusalem Liberation Day. The tour was led by the director of the movement 'Keep Jerusalem', Haim Silberstein, and the purpose was to become familiar with the unique challenges faced by Israel’s capital along with possible solutions and ways to implement them.
The tour included a number of observation points and strategic sites that tell the story of the city since the liberation of its eastern and northern parts in the Six Day War 56 years ago. A view from these points reveals in depth, the magnitude of the miracle that took place with the unification of the city and the liberation of the heart of the Land, Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley.
Silberstein presented to the participants of the tour the complex demographic balance of Jerusalem, as well as the dramatic implications expected to arise with the continual rise in the Arab population of Jerusalem. This rise is turning the trepidation over an Arab majority in the city council or even an Arab mayor in Israel’s capital into a real and worrying possibility.
The data shows that the demographic ratio between Jews and Arabs is currently about 60 percent Jews versus 40 percent Arabs, while in the past the ratio was 70 percent versus 30 percent Arabs. The main reason that leads to the alarming change is emigration of about 7000 people from among the Jewish population who leave the city every year due to lack of supply of apartments for living in the city and lack of employment. An answer to the housing crisis could come in the construction of about 6000 additional housing units every year.
The participants were also exposed to the concerning phenomenon of neglect by Israeli authorities of dealing with illegal Arab building, estimated at tens of thousands of housing units and worsens the lack of governance in the city in various ways.
From the various outlooks visited by the group it was easily possible to see the territorial contiguity that the Arabs are creating from Ramallah to Beit Lehem through Jerusalem’s east. A contiguity that is part of the organized and orchestrated plan by PLO officials, which at least as of now, goes unanswered in any significant way by the Israeli government. Silberstein defines this trend as a demographic Trojan horse of Arab building in the heart of Jerusalem.
In response to the increasing demographic concern Silberstein presented the Greater Jerusalem plan, which expands the municipal borders of Jerusalem in all directions and allows the establishment of more Jewish neighborhoods, more industrial and tourism parks for the capital and adds hundreds of thousands of Jewish residents to Jerusalem.
When the group arrived at Atarot, Silberstein also presented his concept how to deal with the village of Kafar Aqab and the Shuafat refugee camp, which today, are included within Jerusalem’s municipal jurisdiction, although the security fence leaves the village of Aqab outside of Jerusalem itself.
In each of these neighborhoods live over seventy thousand Arabs who live in illegal construction and the law is not enforced against them. This is while in the past only a few thousand Arabs lived in each of them.
In his opinion, it is appropriate to check the possibility for them to have an independent Arab municipal authority under Israeli sovereignty, which would help to preserve the Jewish majority in Jerusalem.
In contrast, the participants also met with the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem Aryeh King, who presented a different concept of how to deal with Aqab and Shuafat. In his opinion, bringing these areas outside Jerusalem’s borders would set a dangerous precedent for the future. And this is besides the possibility that if a leftist government arises in the future, it might view this step of separation as a basis for transferring these two areas and their residents to the control of the Palestinian Authority, which would be a de facto division of Jerusalem, a move that Silverstein also strongly opposes.
King also warned against the possibility where the very existence of a plan to transfer territory to the PA would cause the Arabs of Aqab and Shuafat to search for and find opportunities to move to the western neighborhoods of Jerusalem, as has already happened in the past on a smaller scale with Arabs preferring to be under Israeli sovereignty rather than under the PA.
King and Silberstein agreed that in order to protect Jerusalem and keep its Jewish majority, one must expand Jerusalem' borders as soon as possible and include within it hundreds of thousands of more Jews. Both also agreed that one needs to build many more Jewish neighborhoods.
Silberstein places special emphasis on the importance of establishing the planned Jewish neighborhood in Atarot, whether for demographic reasons, because of the additional 9000 housing units, to increase the governance and expand the border of Jerusalem northward or the historical reason, by returning a Jewish presence to a place that was acquired by Jews and was inhabited by Jews.
As we know, the new neighborhood was approved by a local committee of the City of Jerusalem, was transferred to a district committee and “got stuck” there due to an environmental quality review that had not yet been completed. The practice by which a review can exist concurrently with approval of the neighborhood, was not carried out. It is thought, by various elements in the Jerusalem municipality, to be a result of political considerations at the time when Tamar Zandberg, then Head of the Meretz Party, served as Minister of Environmental Protection. Now, says Silberstein, the expectation is that Minister Idit Silman will approve the review and will allow building of the neighborhood to proceed.
Silberstein also told of the intention to turn the terminal building of the airport in Atarot to a museum for civil aviation and the neighborhood’s heritage and its past.
During the tour, the participants went to Beit Orot Yeshiva, where they met the Head of the Yeshiva, Rabbi Chen Halamish, who spoke about the place’s past, about establishing the neighborhood and the yeshiva and about the importance of the continuing struggle to redeem and build Jerusalem in a practical way.
Another important matter that Silberstein views as critical is the matter of international involvement in Jerusalem’s doings. Hostile elements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Fatah and others along with Jordanian, Turkish and other governmental elements each do as much as they can to increase their presence in Israel’s capital using hundreds of NGOs that undermine Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem and seek to provide alternative services to the city’s Arabs in the areas of culture, education, welfare, tourism, etc. And among these NGOs there are sometimes terrorists with Jewish blood on their hands.
The Sovereignty Movement summarizes this latest tour too with mixed feelings. “The challenges involved in Israeli sovereignty over its eternal capital are increasing, but tours of this type increase Jewish consciousness of the need to strengthen governance and sovereignty in Jerusalem. Our movement will continue to promote in every possible way, whether through hasbara on the Israeli street or working with decision-makers, the vision of Greater Jerusalem, to lead to the desired change in the capital of Israel.