- 3 نيسان 2018
- أقلام مقدسية
By: Walid Salem
I am writing in regard to the moves made of organizing a joint Israeli- Palestinian list to run in the coming Israeli Municipality elections in the next November.
What included below represent the Palestinian position, and it’s developments so far on this matter.
Let me start with a historical description of the Palestinian position on this matter:
First: The Israeli Authorities illegally dissolved the Palestinian city Municipality in June 1967, Just few days after occupation.
Second: Despite that the dissolved Council continued to represent Jerusalem in the Arab ,Islamic, and international federations of cities and capitals till today managing their work from Amman.
Third: Besides that President Arafat appointed a Council for Jerusalem in 1998, and President Abbas did that once again in 2012. The Pre 1967 elected members who continued to be alive were included.
Fourth: When the last year Palestinian municipal elections were held, attempts were made to include Jerusalem in them.
Fifth: The PLO Central Council decided in its last January 15th meeting to “ Re- compose the Palestinian Municipality in East Jerusalem according to the best possible representative and electoral options”.
According to the above, our options for East Jerusalem Municipality are very clear:
First: We want to regain our right to have our Municipality back for work in the ground.
Second: We want to preserve the link between East Jerusalem municipal elections and those of West Bank and Gaza Municipalities.
Third: We want to respect the resolutions of PLO, including the last PLO Central Council on the matter.
Fourth: We want to use the municipal issue as a starting point to build Palestinian sovereignty bottom up in the city, and therefore to start disconnecting East Jerusalem from Israel.
In Brief we want to keep the Unity of our people and their institutions, and not to create separations and further fragmentations as this initiative will do.
On the basis of all the above, the intiatiave of a joint list to the Israeli municipal has the following problems:
1) It Do not take in consideration all the above which are crucial needs for the Palestinians and the Palestinian Jerusalemites.
2)It Do not express respect to the Palestinian side need to bring back their municipal legal structures to activism in the ground in order to build Palestinian sovereignty bottom up.
3)It Do not respect the right of East Jerusalem Palestinians to have their independent municipal structures.
4)Instead of seekig to strengthen unity, It will also create more fragmentation and choas, while we have more than enough of that already.
5) In the current political asymmetry between the two sides, it will end up falling down in the hands of those who want to
annex East Jerusalem to Israel, and the use of the name( Yerushalaym- AlQuds) will not make a difference to this conclusion. I have also reservations about using such a name, that I am leaving now for other article.
Also such a step will be used to support the Trump decision about Jerusalem.
6) In Jerusalem it is an illusion that the municipal is separate from the political. Every thing here is political, or have political ramifications. Therfore such an argument has no market to sell.
In conclusion, this step is not more than a play without a prior good calculation of its results in advance. Therefore it needs to stop. Also it expresses a disrespect to the Palestinians and a way of thinking like: “ We know better than you Palestinians what is good for you”. This patronizing also need to stop.
