Jerusalem: History of the Future

Articels

* History of the Future Conference Report

Jerusalem: History of the Future Conference Report By Andreas Hackl
Introduction The Opening Session The Arab States, the US and the EU: Shifting policies towards Israel and Palestine The United States - Rashid Khalidi The European Union – Joachim Paul The Arab Countries – Mahdi Abdul Hadi The Role of the Media - Walid Omary Jerusalem in Law and Demography Jerusalem in International Law – Firas Milhem Jerusalem in Israeli law – Usama Halaby The politics of demography in Jerusalem – Ahmad Rwaidy The Judaization and Colonization of Jerusalem Digging up Jerusalem – Nazmi Jubeh The Colonization of Jerusalem - Khaleel Toufakji The Judaization of Jerusalem - Ahmad Al-Attrash Israeli Control over Tourism in Jerusalem - Jamal Juma’ Education, Housing, Health and Economy Discrimination in Education – Sameer Jibrel Housing and House-Demolitions – Yacoub Odeh The Economy of Jerusalem – Said Khalidi Public Health – Varsen Agabekhian The Meaning and Reshaping of Space, History and Culture Ottoman Urban Planning and the modernity of Palestine – Salim Tamari Meanings and Perceptions of Jerusalem – Issam Nassar Culture as Resistance – Rania Elias Veiling the Palestinian – Abdul-Rahim Al-Shaikh Ottoman and British Mandate Jerusalem Through a Family Photographic Journey - Mona Halaby Women and Civil Society in Jerusalem Women and Residency in Jerusalem – Fadwa Allabadi Civil society Organizations in Jerusalem – Khalil Nakhleh The Emigration of NGOs from Jerusalem - Fadwa Al-Shaer Conclusion

Introduction
The ambiguous meanings ascribed to Jerusalem throughout history are omnipresent and often seem to penetrate every stone of, and every discourse about this contested city. Names like Al-Quds and Yerushaláyim, West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem, The Holy City and Al-Quds Al-Sharif all imply meanings ascribed to the very same social space. This living space, as a center of human experience, has been subject to drastic transformations. To understand these transformations and its consequences for the social, the cultural, the political and the legal sphere, it is necessary to recapture history and to rethink the present and thereby conceptualize what will be Jerusalem’s History of the Future. Out of this necessity grew an aim to put Jerusalem back into the center of academic and public attention, which gave the initial impetus for the Institute for Palestine studies to organize a conference about the complex implications of Jerusalem’s history, present and future. The conference, titled “Jerusalem: History of the Future” constituted the Institute for Palestine Studies’ annual “conference series”. It enjoyed the patronage of President Mahmoud Abbas and took place in the context of Jerusalem being the Capital of Arab Culture 2009. The initial opening ceremony and a press conference were held in Jerusalem on the 31st of July, followed by three days of presentations and debates. On August the 1st and 2nd, about 300 people attended the event in the Kamal Nasser Lecture Hall at Birzeit University. The third day of conference took place in the Mahmoud Darwish Cultural Center in Nazareth. The topics addressed throughout the conference were certainly as diverse as the complex reality on the ground.
The Opening Session
The first day of conference at Birzeit University was introduced by a number of honored guests and speakers, such as Salam Fayyad, Nabeel Kassis, Camille Mansour, Ali Abu-Hilal, Rafiq Husseini and Amir Makhoul. Dr. Nabeel Kassis, who hosted the conference as the President of Birzeit University, emphasized that one main reason for the conference to take place was to find new scopes within existing academic specializations. For Camille Mansour, who is the director of the institute of law at Birzeit University, the conference had to be viewed as an occasion to think and to plan for the future. Prime Minister Salam Fayyad expressed the PA’s dedication to preserving the collective memory of Palestinians and called upon all participants to contribute to the crystallization of a clear policy for Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. One crucial meaning of the conference, as the chairman of the PA President’s office Rafiq Husseini put it, was that Palestinians were waging a cultural war, of which one important goal must be the preservation of Jerusalem’s identity as an Arab city. The Arab population of Jerusalem is also a vulnerable one which, according to the head of the central bureau of the Workers Unity Bloc (WUB), Ali Abu-Hilal, had to be protected from ethnic cleansing and house demolitions. Amir Makhoul, who is the director of the organization Ittigah, highlighted the fragmentation of Palestinian society as the current major problem and underlined, that the conference was an important step in moving distant pieces closer together.
The Arab States, the US and the EU: Shifting policies towards Israel and Palestine
Panelists: Joachim Paul, Rashid Khalidi, Walid Omary, Mahdi Abdul Hadi Moderator: Nassir Al-Qudwa Prior to the conference, talk about Jerusalem had regenerated on the issue of settlements in East Jerusalem. While the US policy during the George W. Bush administration had certainly failed in addressing questions related to Jerusalem directly and sufficiently, some winds of change from the U.S. became evident throughout July and August 2009, most notably in regard to the intensity of criticism towards certain aspects of Israeli settlement activities. Time can certainly change the frame within which solutions can be found, for the better and also for the worse. The 1^st panel was moderated by Nassir Al-Qudwa, who is the head of the Yasser Arafat Foundation. He warned Israelis, Palestinians and the international community that time was running out in many ways, and that in the absence of cooperation things were likely to deteriorate.
The United States – Rashid Khalidi
The U.S. position towards Jerusalem has, according to Rashid Khalidi, who is the director of the Middle East Institute of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, shifted from a rather critical public opinion against the annexation of East Jerusalem in the 60s and 70s to a total absence of such criticism in the last years. Before Barack Obama was elected president, the US had neither shown the will to confront Israel’s expansionist settlement policies, nor its Security Council violations. The Obama administrations call for a freeze of settlement activities, including those in East Jerusalem, came for many as a surprise. For Rashid Khalidi, Netanyahu’s improper response to that was, that he took the matter out of the diplomatic into the public sphere. In addition to that, the new US position has been confronted with a strong publicity campaign within Israel and most notably also in the US. Notwithstanding the fact that Khalidi was unsure about the continuation of the current trend in US policy towards Israel, he emphasized that there had to be a push towards a two state solution in addition to a clear commitment to the dismantling of settlements. Beyond that, Khalidi stated, that if the Palestinian movement continued without unity, it would increasingly be unable to assert any crucial issues. In the context of such a political vacuum, the Obama administration couldn’t change the course of things in any significant way. Changes could also come from the American Jewish population, of which a considerate percentage feels increasingly alienated by Israel’s politics or by liberal Israeli groups, such as Peace Now. Finally, Khalidi appealed for an effective Palestinian media campaign in the big cities of the world as a means of changing public opinion.
The European Union – Joachim Paul
According to Joachim Paul from the Heinrich Boell Foundation in Ramallah, European policy towards Israel and Palestine had to be understood in relation to the United States. He identified a significant gap between EU policy positions and the actual situation on the ground. In contrast to active policy, the EU has focused on a declaratory policy, an essential part of which is – the EU is the biggest donor of the Palestinian Authority – the understanding of financial support as a declaration of political will. Paul also noticed significant changes within the European Union including rising critical voices from Germany, Sweden and France. In the context of the new political climate, most notably engendered by the changing tone of the new US administration, Paul expects more optimism within the European Union towards a two-state solution which might also result in an increasing acceptability of criticism towards Israel, even in countries like Germany, where positions critical of Israel’s politics had long been muted by historical heritage and discursive taboos.
The Arab Countries – Mahdi Abdul Hadi
Shifting positions of the Arab states towards Israel, Palestine, and more specifically Jerusalem, has to be understood in the context of the rise and fall of Pan-Arab feelings in the region. The focus of the Palestinian leadership has continuously changed in relation to these feelings. According to Abdul Hadi, who is the director of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (PASSIA), the shifting Palestinian leadership positions towards the Arab states became evident throughout the second half of the 20^th century. As concerns the city of Jerusalem, Abdul Hadi identified three stages of its understanding by the Arab states. After 1948 they had looked at East Jerusalem as a Jordanian land, after that, the religious component had been emphasized whereas now, it was widely understood as occupied Palestinian territory. Finally, he called upon the Palestinian leadership of today to formulate a clear concept of Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
The Role of the Media - Walid Omary
Walid Omary, Al Jazeera's Jerusalem bureau chief, criticized the media for its one-sided way of news coverage. Reporting around the world was more concerned with what happens to Christians and what settlers do, than with the lives and perspectives of Palestinians. Omary underlined that, besides the daily news coverage, camera men, painters and writers all played a very important role in shaping the prominent discourses about Jerusalem. He further criticized that representations in the media and consequently also the discourses resulting from them, were often incomplete and would reflect biased views. In addition to that, reliance on symbols, like crowds carrying banners in demonstrations, contributed to emotionalizing facts. He further called upon existing Palestinian initiatives to build their own stories in order to balance against Israeli narratives, which in his eyes were the longer arm of the Israeli occupation. In the end, Omary concluded that reporting about Jerusalem would never be neutral because the issues themselves automatically produced Positioning. But how one can be neutral, he asked, while covering stories about the separation barrier, about settlers and land confiscations and about the crimes of the occupation.
Jerusalem in Law and Demography
Panelists: Firas Milhem, Usama Halaby, Ahmad Rwaidy Moderator: Saher Francis
Jerusalem in International Law – Firas Milhem
On the 29th of November in 1947, the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine suggested that Jerusalem should not be included in either of the two states, but rather be viewed as a corpus separatum, administered by an international regime under the UN. The Partition Plan never got implemented, but despite that, the UN’s important role in the Question of Palestine was acknowledged and accepted at that time. Firas Milhem, Professor of Law at Birzeit University, emphasized that the international community had not addressed the special legal status of Jerusalem after 1967. He further criticized the UN for not clearly specifying the legal and political boundaries of Jerusalem whenever addressing it. According to Milhem, resolutions on the Palestinian right to self-determination and on Jerusalem specifically would have to be issued in addition to existing resolutions and conventions, which addressed various issues related to the question of Palestine.
Jerusalem in Israeli law – Usama Halaby
Usama Halaby, who is an advocate in Jerusalem, stated at the beginning that the Israeli law had continuously been employed as a political tool and that it functioned as the backbone of Israeli politics. The Israeli understanding of Jerusalem as a Jewish city with an Arab population informed the disallowance of Israeli citizenship for Palestinian Jerusalemites in 1967. This denial of the same rights for Palestinians was, in Halaby’s eyes, an Israeli strategy to weaken Palestinian society. The Israeli law has continuously been utilized to form and deform borders, to dominate as much land as possible and to protect Jewish settlement strategies. Halaby further criticized, that the “world” – including the PA – was mostly dealing with Palestinians living outside Jerusalem, while Israel is confiscating more and more land and destroying Palestinians property in the city, sometimes under the pretence of reshaping it for public utility. As a conclusion, he underlined that Israeli law had been instrumentalized to reach political goals since the establishment of the Israeli state. The worst example of the utilization of law for such purposes, he said, was the separation barrier built under the legitimacy of Israeli emergency law.
The politics of demography in Jerusalem – Ahmad Rwaidy
For Ahmad Rwaidy, who is the head of the Jerusalem unit in the president’s office, Israel was working towards a Judaization of Jerusalem in many ways. In order not to lose permanent residency status, Palestinian Jerusalem ID holders had to proof that Jerusalem is their center of life, which consequently decreased their flexibility to live in other areas of the occupied Palestinian territories or to marry somebody from the West Bank and to live in Jerusalem together. Israel’s interim goal was, according to Rwaidy, to keep the Arab population of Jerusalem lower than 22 percent. House demolitions, the annexation of land for settlement expansion and the prevention of cultural activities all contributed to the destruction of Palestinian civil society and land in Jerusalem. Rwadiy concluded that Palestinian institutions would have to be supported and a joint plan for immediate actions formulated in order to increase Palestinian steadfastness in occupied East Jerusalem. In this regard he underlined the need to activate Arab and Pan-Islamic funds for education, youth, women and capacity building.
The Judaization and Colonization of Jerusalem
Panelists: Nazmi Jubeh, Khaleel Toufakji, Ahmad Al Attrash, Jamal Juma’ Moderator: Juliet Tuma
Digging up Jerusalem – Nazmi Jubeh
Archeological excavations and the digging of tunnels are part of an Israeli strategy to control and posses Jerusalem’s territory. Nazmi Jubeh, who is the co-director of Riwaq, Centre for Architectural Conservation, gave an overview about various diggings that were carried out by the Israeli archaeological authority, often funded by settlement societies. One digging north of the Austrian Hospice, the so called suleiman grotto in the old city, attempts to link a tunnel with a nearby settlement. Very often, Al-Jubeh stated, archaeological excavations with the initial goal to find Jewish historical evidence would discover buildings from the mamluk period instead. Another excavation has taken place in bursh al-laqlal, where a large area had previously been confiscated by settlers with the attempt to establish 36 housing units. Within these expansionist practices, Al-Jubeh noticed, it was difficult to distinguish the archeologist from the settler. The “war of tunnels” carried out by Israel also reflected the increasing doubts about the scientific tenability of Jewish myths and traditional Jewish narratives such as Masaada and the City of David.
The Colonization of Jerusalem - Khaleel Toufakji
In 1967, according to the geographer and researcher Khaleel Toujakji, Israel had not controlled a single piece of East Jerusalem whereas today, about 200.000 Israelis lived in East Jerusalem having control of about 68 percent of its total area. Whereas international law clearly determines Jerusalem as belonging to both, Israelis and Palestinians, the understanding of municipal Jerusalem, or “Greater Jerusalem”, as an Israeli city informs the demographic and geopolitical policy of Israel today. Already in 1948, claimed Toufakji, were the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem drawn in order to include Jewish and exclude Arab neighborhoods. Another tool for changing demographic patterns in favor of Israel was the construction of the “Apartheid Wall”, which, according to Toufakji, had a demographic dimension as it separated West Bank Palestinians from Jerusalem and cut off thousands of Palestinian homes which had formerly been included within the municipal boundaries of the city. He concluded, that the conflict over Jerusalem was a demographic and geographic one, manifested in Israeli measures such as house demolitions, evictions, withdrawals of ID cards, and makeshift laws which had no legal basis.
The Judaization of Jerusalem - Ahmad Al-Attrash
For Ahmad Al-Attrash from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the fragmentation of Palestinian territory and the constant increase of settlements in East Jerusalem were crucial aspects of a strategic Judaization. That strategy manifested itself in various attempts to control space, demography and land. One of these attempts was the unjust distribution of building permits between Israelis and Palestinians and most notably the ongoing settlement expansion which, according to Al-Attrash, had resulted in the building of about 50.000 new housing units in occupied territory since the Annapolis conference. He further emphasized, that the most dangerous Judaization attempt by Israel was the so called E1 plan. Initially promoted by Yitzhak Rabin, it aimed at separating East Jerusalem from the West Bank by connecting the settlement Ma’ale Adumim to Jerusalem through the construction of about 15.000 residential homes, an industrial zone and a commercial area. This would further result in the physical separation of the southern and the northern parts of the West Bank. In order to address the fatality of these policies appropriately, Al-Attrash suggested the usage of terms like “socio-cide”, “culture-cide”, “ethnocracy”, “spacio-cide” or “de-palestinization”.
Israeli Control over Tourism in Jerusalem - Jamal Juma’
The coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall, Jamal Juma’, discussed how tourism was being utilized as a tool to extend Israeli control over land, money and people in Jerusalem. Tourism, in his eyes, had to be understood in the context of demographic dynamics such as the Israeli practice of blocking Palestinian immigration into Jerusalem. Even though tourism provided many jobs as the main economic sector in the city, Israelis often preferred to work and live in Tel Aviv where the average income was much higher. Israel’s control over tourism consequently resulted in an unjust distribution of the economic share and also, as Juma’ underlined, in the extension of settlements in the form of tourist facilities like hotels, view points and other infrastructure. One example of such “touristic colonization” takes place in the Holy Basin were parks and viewpoint platforms are built and archeological excavations are carried out. Finally, Juma’ criticized that an increasing number of foreign investors contributed to the intensification of Israeli control over East Jerusalem’s land and its tourism capacities.
Education, Housing, Health and Economy
Panelists: Sameer Jibrel, Yacoub Odeh, Said Khalidi, Versen Agabekhian Moderator: Nahla Asali
Discrimination in Education – Sameer Jibrel
Sameer Jibrel, who is the director of education in the Jerusalem district, mentioned in the outset of his presentation, that Israel undermined the Palestinian Jerusalemite’s right to education in various ways. Starting from 1967, Palestinian schools were expropriated and Israeli curricula introduced. Many Palestinian students were forced to move outside of Jerusalem for appropriate schooling or had to be taught by private teachers in residential houses. Even though Israel had withdrawn the imposition of Israeli curricula on Palestinian schools, according to Jibrel, about 50 percent of Palestinian Jerusalemites studied in “Israeli kind of schools”. Another observable trend was that the number of private schools had risen significantly. He further stated that about 20 percent of Palestinian students going to school in Jerusalem had to cross checkpoints on their way to school and where deprived from studying in an appropriate environment and therefore unable to make use of their human right to education. Jibrel emphasized, that mobility restrictions and inappropriate education were two interconnected aspects, and he further underlined that argument with the example of teachers who, due to Israeli mobility restrictions, were often unable to enter Jerusalem for work. Another problem was the need for more classrooms. According to Jibrel, the number of classrooms built in East Jerusalem was significantly smaller than in West Jerusalem. He was also concerned by the high drop-out rates among Palestinian Jerusalemites in public schools. As a conclusion, Jibrel identified an urgent need for better and more appropriate education in East Jerusalem and also said that Israel must respect the Palestinian’s right to education just as it recognizes the Israeli’s one.
Housing and House-Demolitions – Yacoub Odeh
For Yacoub Odeh, who is a researcher in human rights and residency rights, the conflict about land and space in Jerusalem was essentially a conflict about existence and not about boundaries. House demolitions executed by Israeli authorities are narrowing the space for Palestinians to live. According to him, since 1967 more than 9000 houses were demolished in Jerusalem. From an Israeli point of view, the legal basis for many of these destructions was that Palestinians presumably had built houses without valid permits, but in fact, according to Yacoub, they were forced to do so. He further noted that clear guidelines for an effective construction of homes in East Jerusalem were necessary in order to appropriately use the space available. According to him, Palestinian city planning often produced narrow approaches. As a result, Israeli buildings use space more effectively since they comprise more units per house and accommodate more people.
The Economy of Jerusalem – Said Khalidi
The Israeli practice of pushing Palestinians outside the city consequently implies the disintegration of Palestinian economic power. Another kind of brain-drain takes place through Palestinian emigration to the Gulf States. For Kahlidi, who is a lecturer at Birzeit University, it was crucial for the economic future of a Palestinian-based economy in Jerusalem to tackle the sources of its decline. While it prevents a Palestinian economy to flourish, Israel tries to attract Jewish newcomers into the city. These attempts, together with the systematic absorption of a huge number of settlers into the economy, provided – according to Khalidi – the core of Israel’s strategic economic policy in Jerusalem. Another aspect of the strategic suppression of a Palestinian-based economy in East Jerusalem is the severe mobility restrictions imposed by the Israeli occupation. These restrictions resulted in higher costs and increasing unemployment. Beyond that, Palestinian products were to a large extent restricted from entering the Israeli market. In conclusion, Khalidi summarized, that the political and the economic realities of Palestinian lives under Israeli occupation would have to be understood as intrinsically interconnected aspects of the very same discrimination.
Public Health – Varsen Agabekhian
For Varsen Agabekhian, who is the director of “Al-Quds - Capital of Arab Culture 2009”, the health conditions among Palestinian Jerusalemites was a central issue of inequality, which has often been deprived of public attention. Even though health indicators among Jerusalemites were better than those of West Bank Palestinians, the criticality of mental and physical dangers had to be considered. According to Agabekhian, these dangers were often indirect consequences of Israeli policy in Jerusalem. Health problems resulted from humiliating measures like house demolitions and house evictions or the confiscations of ID cards. Living and being able to move within the Israeli state while having friends and family in the occupied Palestinian territories often implied crucial identity questions and problems of identification for young Jerusalemites. Agabekhian further stated that there was a direct connection between the occupation, poverty and drug-abuse. In addition to that, she underlined the difficult situation many Palestinian women in East Jerusalem were facing, especially in regard to violence against them and against their children which in her eyes had not been addressed sufficiently so far. In conclusion, Agabekhian emphasized that the situation for many West Bank and Gaza Palestinians was even worse since they often lacked access to appropriate health treatment due to mobility restrictions imposed by the Israeli occupation.
The Meaning and Reshaping of Space, History and Culture
Panelists: Salim Tamari, Issam Nassar, Rania Elias, Abdul Rahim Shaikh, Mona Halaby Moderator: Jihan al-Hilo
Ottoman Urban Planning and the modernity of Palestine – Salim Tamari
Salim Tamari is the director of the Institute of Jerusalem studies and the editor of the “Jerusalem Quarterly”. According to him, many modernization claims made by the British Mandate must acknowledge the achievements of the ottoman era. The ottoman urban planning sought to preserve the “native” nature of the cities within its empire and thereby followed a vision which was informed by orientalist notions. Among the various modernization efforts was the building of infrastructure such as the railway linking Istanbul with the hijaz. The ottoman urban planning was further informed by a specific model which implied the reshaping of public spaces and the construction of clock towers and certain monuments. According to Tamari, such clock towers were aimed at establishing certain traditions of prayer and work. Another transformation of cities’ character was the development of a “space of pleasure” for public recreation, which included coffee shops, parks (like the construction of the municipality park in Jerusalem, where musical band used to play) and other social sites of coming together. During the British Mandate the focus was on a communal notion of religiosity which reversed the achievements of ottoman citizenship, and equality before the law. The importance of the old city as a religious heritage, supposed to belong mainly to the world religions, informed attempts to separate it from the surrounding city of Jerusalem. This became evident through the creation of a belt of parks and greens around the old city. Tamari concluded, that modern urban planning had originally been ottoman and was then reshaped by the mandate. Many urban concepts that date back to that period have been recast into new forms of separation and isolation by Israel.
Meanings and Perceptions of Jerusalem – Issam Nassar
Is Jerusalem a holy site or a living city? This question, raised at the outset of Issam Nassars presentation, was aimed at addressing the various meanings ascribed to Jerusalem. According to Nassar, who is an associate professor of history at Illinois State University, these meanings have always been informed by particular perceptions of Jerusalem as an idea employed within the religious frames of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. For him, space was a crystallization of certain concepts that go beyond the geographic dimension. In Jerusalem, we necessarily would have to take into account that a multiplicity of ideas informed the respective perceptions of it as a space of human experience. In the eyes of Nassar, Jerusalem was both, an idea and a living city as well as a social and cognitive space where human experiences were exercised. How Jerusalem is perceived through the lens of Judaism, Islam and Christianity depended on the respective narratives employed. Nassar stated, that within Judaism, Jerusalem was mentioned as a holy city in the Torah, which had been written in the Babylonian exile. The perceptions of the exiled became a central aspect of the general Jewish perception of the city. References implying these meanings are still repeated in prayers today. Christianity came out of the embryo of Judaism and, according to Tamari, took over its central meaning of Jerusalem. It was only in the 4th century AD that Christians started to develop their own perception of Jerusalem as a sacred city; it became a symbol of an aspired paradise. In Islam Jerusalem plays a central role in the Koran, especially in regard to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. During the Umayyad period, attention within Islam focused rather on Damascus than on Jerusalem. Notwithstanding the fact that the perceptions of the three religions may differ, Nassar underlined that Jerusalem was a concept and a notion to which Christians, Jews and Muslims in the whole world were linked to. But Palestinians, he said, also had a historical and political right emanating from their continuous presence in the city.
Culture as Resistance – Rania Elias
Rania Elias is a member of the executive committee for “Al-Quds – Capital of Arab Culture 2009”. She stated at the outset that Palestinian identity and culture had been continuously suppressed by the Israeli occupation. In many ways Israeli policy implied aspects for reshaping prominent narratives and aspects of identity. Among these policies, Elias said, was the renaming of street names, the closing of cultural institutions and the prohibition of cultural events in Jerusalem. For her, Palestinian cultural resistance was carried out in many forms like the publishing of writings, made possible through print houses as early as 1908, or through the first school of photography in Jerusalem, which had been established in 1959. Elias regretted that since 1967 strong pressure from Israel had suppressed Palestinian cultural institutions. She called for a national cultural strategy as a main component of Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation and highlighted the value of such strategy for protecting cultural heritage, education and identity. She concluded that culture and innovation should become essential parts of a modern way of Palestinian resistance.
Veiling the Palestinian – Abdul-Rahim Al-Shaikh
In the eyes of the poet and writer Abdul-Rahim Al-Shaikh, Palestinian presence had been purposively veiled by Israel through the renaming of places. While Israel criticized Palestinian curricula for negating Israeli presence and of allegedly imposing a mere Palestinian perspective on its pupils in schools, Israel, according to Rahim Shaikh, had been doing the very same thing through the governmental names commission. The modern state, he added, engineered the language it applied and therein manufactured a certain space for the exercise of narrative power. Initially established to preserve Hebrew names under the British Mandate period, the Israeli governmental names commission had been active in renaming former Arabic names in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and in East Jerusalem. Most recently, the Likud party, Al-Shaikh stated, continued to link existing names with the historical experience of Jews in the area. One example for that was the name Derekh Gandhi, applied to the section of route 90 passing through the Jordan Valley. The name derived from an assassinated Israeli tourist minister, who had been nicknamed after Mahatma Gandhi.
Ottoman and British Mandate Jerusalem Through a Family Photographic Journey - Mona Halaby
In Mona Halaby’s visual presentation Jerusalem, from the late Ottoman period to the British Mandate, was depicted through a family pictorial collection. Both her maternal grandparents and great-grandparents had lived in Jerusalem and experienced its history and main events. Her presentation featured a wide range of photographs showing schools with their pupils, newspapers and various hotels. The collection exists thanks to her family members who had been active in the early tourism industry, in education and journalism.
Women and Civil Society in Jerusalem
Panelists: Fadwa Allabadi, Khalil Nakhleh, Fadwa Al-Shaer Moderator: Sama Awaidah
Women and Residency in Jerusalem – Fadwa Allabadi
According to Fadwa Allabadi, who is the director of the “INSAN” center for Gender studies at Al-Quds University, the women’s role from a state perspective had often been reduced to reproduction and consequently implied the continuation of demographic domination of one group over another. Palestinian women with permanent residency status in Israel were subject to Israeli law, which would give women the right to divorce and to reject polygamy. It is often the patriarchal family and the social pressure deriving from it, Allabadi stated, that prevented women from making demands on the basis of that law. In the context of ethnic cleansing and increasing Judaization of Jerusalem, family reunions and the reproductive function of women were increasingly perceived as a national interest. Therein lied a danger of ascribing roles of national obligations to women while depriving them from their basic right, Allabadi said. If a Jerusalemite Palestinian married a West Bank Palestinian, he or she would have to move to the West Bank since family reunions and residency rights through marriage were not possible according to law. According to Allabadi, women were suffering from the tensions between law and tradition.
Civil society Organizations in Jerusalem – Khalil Nakhleh
According to the anthropologist Khalil Nakhleh, the 130 – 135 NGOs in Jerusalem should above all serve the social fabric and the Palestinian community in the city. In his understanding, social fabric refered to the basic characteristics of social structure and the social entanglement of Palestinian society in Jerusalem. Nakhleh underlined that the Jerusalemites were orphans isolated from the eastern part of Palestine. In addition to that, Palestinian civil society suffered from fragmentation in the absence of a unified struggle. He criticized, that a parasitic political and economic elite was under control of Palestinian political decision-making and the national capital. Partly due to this difficult social context, NGOs – in Nakhleh’s eyes – failed in supporting the Palestinian social fabric. He further identified a lack of popular support for NGOs. One reason for that was that many of these Organizations depended on foreign funding and were subject to foreign interest which did not serve the social fabric of Palestinian society. Nakhleh concluded that serious evaluation of the current situation of NGOs in Jerusalem would have to be done in order to identify failures and make changes. He suggested that one such change could be to separate organizations from external funding and provide them with more Palestinian support instead.
The Emigration of NGOs from Jerusalem - Fadwa Al-Shaer
Fadwa Al-Shaer, who is the director of the general administration for NGOs at the PA, stated at the outset of her presentation that for a long time NGOs in Palestine carried out work the Palestinian National Authorities had failed to do. One problem created by the emigration of large NGOs from Jerusalem into the West Bank or elsewhere was that they left a political vacuum. According to Al-Shaer, financial incentives could help to bring organizations back into the city and practical solutions by the Palestinian Authority for those Institutions that still remain in Jerusalem could prevent further emigration. She concluded that cooperation between international and local organizations had to improve and more support from Palestinians could help reaching that goal. Action and cooperation was necessary and the PA had to readdress its role as a supporter of civil society organizations.
Conclusion
It became obvious throughout the conference that Jerusalem is a microcosm of the general situation of life under Israeli occupation and a macrocosm within itself. It is the latter dimension with its specific implications for Palestinian Jerusalemites that needs to be addressed even more specifically. What are the particular vulnerabilities of Jerusalem’s Palestinian population and its institutions? In which way does the Israeli policy of colonization and domination affect the city and its people and how, under such pressure, are the Palestinians able to preserve their part of Jerusalem? Having identified a wide and complex area of vulnerabilities, threats and consequences, the presentations given at the conference most importantly provide a basis for further research and action. The fact that the questions these presentations raised certainly outnumbered those they answered also indicates the necessity for continuative discussions about Jerusalem and the its meaning for the history of the future. The importance of Jerusalem as a national, religious and historic idea informs policy in a fundamental way and thereby inflicts damage on another sphere of the city, which is lived human experience. It is this living aspect and its interplay with Jerusalem as a sense of identity that is significant for the lives of the Palestinian Jerusalemites. If there is one thing we can learn from history, it is that whenever an idea becomes more important than human experience, be it religious fundamentalism or nationalism in its extreme forms, one should start to worry about the current trajectory of politics. The meaning of Jerusalem’s “stones” needs to be integrated into the lives of its population and not the other way around.

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