JERUSALEM:  The Holy City of Jerusalem is one of the most ancient cities in the world. A city holy for all religions, Al-Quds Al-Sharif is the first kiblah and third of the Holy Muslim sites, from which the Prophet Mohammed ascended on his  journey to heaven; home of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the burial place of Jesus Christ; and site of the Wailing (Western) Wall. While it is significant to the international community, the Holy City is of central importance to the Palestinian people. Jerusalem is the heart of the question of Palestine and the key to peace, or war in the area.

With the exception of brief Crusader rule (1099-1187), Jerusalem was   under Muslim rule from 638 to 1917. The biggest city in Palestine, Jerusalem was also its political and cultural center. From the establishment of the municipality of Jerusalem in 1863, and until 1948, all the mayors of the city were Palestinian. In 1917, the population of Palestine was composed of over 90% Palestinian Arabs and less than 10% Jews. In the decades that followed the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate over Palestine, Jewish immigration to Palestine intensified and the Jewish population in Jerusalem increased dramatically.   

The Palestinians has always regarded Jerusalem or "Al Quds" as the capital of Palestine, and for peace to go through, east Jerusalem will have to be the future capital of their state.

Since 1967, Israel has, in a systematic manner, aimed to change the legal status, demographic composition and character of the occupied territories, mainly East Jerusalem, through the implementation of a comprehensive and integrated policy targeting the artificial creation of a Jewish majority in the city through the confiscation of land, the intensification of settlement construction and the transfer of settlers into the city. This policy has in turn aimed at decreasing the existence of Palestinians in Jerusalem by making life harsher for them by all means and in all areas of life.

Through the Israeli Expropriation Bill of 1968, 85.6% of the land annexed in Occupied East Jerusalem and its surrounding villages was confiscated from its private Palestinian owners. 44% of the land was deemed "green areas", on which it is forbidden to build, and 42.5% was used to build and expand Jewish settlements. The locations of these settlements form a ring around East Jerusalem, encircling it from the north, south, east and west. This ring of settlements has served to isolate the city from the West Bank and also prevent Arab neighborhoods from further expansion and growth.

All of the above-mentioned actions by Israel have been committed in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, the Hague Regulations of 1907 and in blatant defiance of relevant Security Council resolutions. In twenty-four of those resolutions, the Security Council affirmed the applicability of the Convention to all the occupied territories, including Jerusalem, and repeatedly declared that all of the measures and arrangements taken by Israel, including the legislative and administrative ones, aimed at changing the legal status of the city are null and void and without any legal validity whatsoever.

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During the second war in 1967, some 30,000 Palestinians left the West Bank and Golan area (UN estimates), almost half of them second-time refuges. There are more than 3 million Palestinian refugees in the Middle East. Only 38% of them live in the occupied territories, while the majority lives in Jordan. Hundreds of thousands others are in Lebanon and Syria. 79% of all Palestinian refugees live in refugee camps; 60% of them under the poverty line.

The refugee issue has been on the agenda of efforts concerning a settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict ever since the first war in 1948. This issue is one of the permanent status issues to be dealt with between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators. The Palestinians insists on the right of the refugees to return to their original family homes. They also expect Israel to compensate any who choose to remain abroad or move to the new Palestinian state.

 SETTLEMENTS:  Israel’s settlements policy, the permanent transfer of parts of its Israeli Jewish immigrants to the occupied territories, started immediately after it occupied the West Bank, including Jerusalem, Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and the Sinai in 1967. Since then Israel has transferred approximately 350,000 Jewish settlers to the Occupied Palestinian Territory,  over 180,000 of which live in East Jerusalem. The aim of such policies has been the colonization of parts of the occupied territories and to prevent the realization by the Palestinian people of their right to self-determination.

Israel applied complex measures for illegal land acquisition, ranging from the control of all state and communal lands, the application of the emergency regulations of 1945 and of the absentee property procedures, the change of laws related to the expropriation of land, to the direct confiscation of privately owned land. That was coupled with massive exploitation of natural resources, especially water resources. Also, various significant financial incentives were offered to encourage Israelis to move to the occupied territories, including rebates and low interest loans, free infrastructure services and the employment of a high percentage of settlers in the public sector.

The Israeli settlement system, with its various dimensions, including the transfer of Israelis to the occupied territories; the illegal acquisition of land; the exploitation of natural resources; the establishment of a separate structure of life and the subversion of the exercise by the Palestinian people of their rights, is a distinctive combination of classic colonialism waged on the basis of apartheid-like arrangements. Clearly, development and expansion of the above-described settlement system was carried forth despite the vehement opposition of the Palestinian people as well as the firm stance of the international community.

 The Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 1949, of which Israel is a signatory party, prohibits in all cases the transfer of parts of the civilian population of the occupying Power into the territory it occupies. The Convention, as well as the Hague Convention on the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its Annexed Regulations of 1907, which together constitute customary international law, prohibit the destruction, seizure and confiscation of private or public properties in occupied territories (except when absolutely necessary for military reasons).

The applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 has been asserted by the International Committee of the Red Cross, by United Nations organs and agencies, as well as by every country in the world. The United Nations Security Council reaffirmed the applicability of the Convention to the occupied territories, including Jerusalem, in twenty-four resolutions. The Council has specifically dealt with the issue of settlements, established a Commission in this regard and considers settlements to be illegal and an obstacle to peace. In addition, the Council has called for the cessation of all settlement activities and the dismantling of the existing ones. The Council's resolutions 446, 452 and 465  stated that all measures taken by Israel to change the demographic composition, physical character, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, are null and void and have no legal validity.

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More than 40 deep-bore wells were also drilled in the West Bank, with powerful hardware, adjacent to existing Palestinian drilled wells with minimal hardware, for consumption by Israel. This action by itself weakens the water source going to the Palestinian wells, and in most cases stops the water from flowing to Palestinian farmlands, which in turn forces farmers to abandon farming completely.

Towards the end of the 1970s, the occupying Power transferred responsibility over water resources from the military government to the Israeli national water company "Mekkorot", The result has been a severe water shortage for the Palestinian population and a decline in agricultural output because Palestinian farmers have been forced to abandon their farmlands in order to find alternative means of livelihood. The dramatic fall in the proportion of the GNP and employment accounted for by agriculture is also a result of the enormous amount of agricultural land lost to the occupation authorities through confiscation.

Palestinians are always subject to quotas and intermittent pipeline closures, and many Palestinian houses are not connected to any water supply, Israeli settlers however, draw unlimited water from West Bank sources. For the Palestinians, unfettered access to and ownership of aquifers and other water sources is an issue not only of survival, but also of sovereignty. Peace negotiators must address this issue and find a just and fare solution, and then maybe peace will be what the word means; PEACE.

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