It has taken Pat a while to get a laptop and email connection, but we hope now to have regular updates following this first post that tells of her arrival in Jerusalem.
We arrived in a very tense Jerusalem on the evening of March16th. You may have read about the disturbances at Al Aqsa mosque, but what you probably didn’t hear is that Jerusalem had been closed for five days This means that Palestinians who live in the West Bank with permits to work or study or access health care in Jerusalem had not been allowed to enter and no Palestinian was allowed into the Old City of Jerusalem, unless they lived there.
The steps down to the Damascus Gate, which had been teeming with street traders on my previous visit were deserted. Instead, police and military vans lined the northern wall of the Old City and we saw the riot gear being assembled, which some of us have seen on London demonstrations – but here it also includes live amunition . Our Jerusalem training included a session with a coordinator of Breaking the Silence, an organisation for former Israeli soldiers who have decided to speak out about their experience of ‘national service’ He explained that ‘riot’ control procedure is as follows( but sometimes soldiers do not have full range of equipment and stages get missed):
· Order to disperse
· Throw stun grenades & tear gas
· Fire rubber bullets (but the rubber conceals metal bullets & is sometimes removed)
· Fire live ammunition ( officially at the legs)
The picture shows Palestinian men at Friday prayer( behind the military) on the pavement opposite the Damascus Gate, because their entry to the Old City and the Al Aqsa mosque is barred
The closure had originally been declared because of the rebuilding of a Synagogue which had been used as a military launch pad in the defeat of the Arabs in 1948 and this was followed by rumours that the cornerstone of the Third Temple was to be laid at Al Aqsa mosque. The disturbances at the mosque soon spread to areas of East Jerusalem, where Palestinian homes are under threat of demolition, as the Israelis take steps to make
During our training we took a tour with ICAD ( Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions)
The Picture shows the Al Bustan
Residents’ campaign tent
In the Silwan and Al Bustan neighbourhoods, ( as shown on the Panorama programme) the proposal from the Israeli government is to demolish 88 Palestinian homes, making 1500 people homeless, to make way for the creation of an Archeological Park, part of the excavations for the City of David. This will be a major tourist attraction, but there are serious questions about the archeological authenticity of the excavation. In another area we heard that foreign capital from dubious sources is purchasing all available land between Palestinian settlements in East Jerusalem as part of the Judaisation of Jerusalem and we witnessed the stark contrast in the levels of service (eg. sewage, waste collection, pavements, play facilities) between the new Israeli houses and the existing Palestinian houses although all are paying rates
