Israel To Erase Al-Quds Arab Identity

Erasing the remaining history of Arabs and Palestinians in Al-Quds (Occupied East Jerusalem), a new bill was proposed on Monday at the Israeli Knesset that requires Hebraizing all Arabic names of its neighborhoods.
“In our battle for Jerusalem, it is important that we recognize the historic Hebrew roots of the city,” MK Tzipi Hotovely (Likud), who proposed the bill, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, May 31.
“Neighborhoods in Jerusalem, mostly in the city’s east, are called by their Arabic names,” Hotovely explained.
“The Arabic names distance us from our roots.”
Israel occupied the holy city in the 1967 war and later annexed it in a move not recognized by the international community or UN resolutions.
Since then, Israel has adopted a series of oppressive measures to force the Palestinians out of the city, including systematic demolition of their homes and building settlements.
In a new attempt to Judaize al-Quds, the bill would ask the Jerusalem City Council to complete the Hebraization of all city neighborhoods, replace the signposts and not use the previous names in any official matter.
For example, the Palestinian town of Abu Dis will become Kidmat Zion, while Abu Tor will turn into Givat Hananya.
Furthermore, the Israel Broadcasting Authority and the Second Authority for Television and Radio will also be instructed to avoid the previous names and only use the Hebrew names.
Hotovely also quoted a letter written by David Ben-Gurion in which he wrote, “Just as we do not recognize Arab political ownership of our land, we do not recognize their spiritual ownership, and we do not need their names, which give off the Arab scent.”
“Names are part of the national struggle,” Hotovely said.
Al-Quds is home to Al-Haram Al-Sharif, which includes Islam’s third holiest shrine Al-Aqsa Mosque, and represents the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
A recent report issued earlier this year by the 25 European Union Consuls-General, who are the ambassador-level representatives to the Palestinian Authority, suggested that Al-Quds be treated as the capital of the future Palestinian state.

Discriminatory Police

The fierce attacks on Palestinians’ history and identity in Al-Quds are not the only dilemmas facing Israeli Arabs in the occupied holy town.
A new civil rights report said that Israeli Arab children were suffering from indiscriminate arrest by Israeli police.
“They see the police as a hostile body, which often exercises its power against them, ignores their needs and safety and prefers the Jewish population’s interest,” a report issued today by Association for Civil Rights said, Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Tuesday.
Stressing that children under the age of 12 should not be arrested, the association’s report details incidents of children being taken out of their bids in the mid of the night to be handcuffed, arrested and questioned without their parents.
It added that roughly 1,200 children were questioned on suspicion of pelting stones and 759 were arrested for suspected violations of a nationalistic nature.
Charges were pressed in 226 of the cases. East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Silwan and Issawiya were listed in the report as the most prominent sites of contention.
“The large gap between the number of kids who were questioned and arrested, and the number of charges pressed, reinforces the Arab residents’ feeling that most of these arrests and inquiries are meant to instill fear in the minors, collect information from them and stop them from repeating the acts they are suspected of committing,” the report read.
The report also highlighted Israeli Arabs distrust of the authorities and inequality in the way police treat Arab and Jewish populations as main reasons preventing them from filing complaints to the police.
“We have testimonies that show that the police ignore complaints filed by Arabs about harm done to their property, body or safety,” the report reads.
“In contrast, when a Jew files a complaint against a Palestinian, the police often use the fullest extent of the law, and do their job in the best way possible.”
Israeli Arabs, who make up nearly a fifth of the population, are descendants of those who stayed when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes by Zionist gangs in 1948, when Israel was founded on the rubble of Palestine.
Relations between Israel’s Jews and Arabs have long been difficult, with Arabs complaining of discrimination.
The Knesset has further made life unbearable for Israeli Arabs married to Palestinians by adopting a law denying the latter the right to get an Israeli residency to live with their spouses.

Source: OnIslam