Wake Up Palestine – Developmental Discrimination

Jerusalem24 – Wake Up Palestine – Palestinians in Jerusalem are facing new challenges in the city they call home due to the East Jerusalem City Center development plan that is being pushed by the Israeli municipality of the city.

According to the Jerusalem Human Rights Consortium, Palestinians are facing discrimination through the Israeli institutions on several levels. With the main goal being to adjust the population ratio between Palestinian (currently standing at 38%) and Jewish/Israeli communities (standing at 62%) in Jerusalem to 30% Palestinian and 70% Jewish.

They are also facing discrimination in service provisioning, that serves to create a coercive environment. While the Palestinians comprise 38% of the population and contribute 22% of the revenues of the Municipality of Jerusalem, they only received 11% of the total budget for services. This percentage is even lower if we examine marginalized neighbourhoods like Kufur Aqab, where 2012 figures (JLAC received through free access to inform from the municipality) indicated that while Kufur Aqab contributed with 11.7 million shekels of Arnona Tax alone, the municipality spent only 2 million shekels on the neighborhood.

Even the roads system is skewed against Palestinians.  whereby Israel seeks to ensure the contiguity of Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem at the expense of isolating Palestinian neighborhoods, either behind the wall or as separated islands between highways. Some examples of this are Road No.1, and more recently the road known as the American Road, which divided Palestinian neighbourhoods while connecting Jewish ones. A new plan was recently announced just this week to construct a new road between Izariyeh/ Abu Dis and Iz’ayem and to move the Iz’ayem check point to Khan al Ahmar towards implementing the E1 plan. So doing, will connect the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim with Jerusalem (without requiring settlers to stop

In this episode of Wake Up Palestine, Mohammad Hamayel speaks with the Director of the Jerusalem Human Rights Consortium (JHRC), Faris Arouri. The JHRC along with several allied organizations have recently been objecting to the Jerusalem Municipalities’ plans.

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