The fact that East Jerusalem suffers from deprivation does not
require a scientific investigation. It is sufficient to walk its
street to discover how neglected it is. If the evidence of one's
eyes is not enough, a plenitude of research has shown the existence
of institutionalized, systematic discrimination. This article seeks
to draw attention to the means by which the discrimination is
perpetrated, to discover the roots and meaning of the policy and
what it says about the motivation of those carrying it out.
The municipal deprivation manifests itself in three areas:
allocation of land for residences; allocation of municipals
services and limitation of demographic development. East Jerusalem
residents, who make up 35% of the population, receive 9-12% of the
municipal budget - well below their urgent and legitimate needs -
suffer from deprivation and a chronic lack of infrastructure. The
mass of limits imposed by city hall on land for legitimate building
has made the mission almost impossible. The permitted area for
building is extremely sparse - about 10,000 dunams out of the
70,000 dunams annexed in 1967. The size of the buildings on the
plots is also severely limited. In most of East Jerusalem the
building percentages per plot are 35-75%, whereas in the Western
part of the city the percentages are 75-120%1. Regarding
demography, the State determined, in one of its most shameful
decisions, that the Arab sector should not exceed 30% of the
population of the city in order to maintain an absolute majority of
Jews. The latest master plan, "Jerusalem 2000," acknowledges that
this objective has not been achieved and sets a new limit - 40%
Arab. The decision-makers are apparently incapable of understanding
the moral implications of their untenable policy. It is not
difficult to imagine how the State of Israel would react if a
European country intended limiting the number of its Jewish
residents.
By means of the above three control mechanisms, City Hall rules the
lives of East Jerusalem residents: The first determines the living
area; the second determines the quality of life; and the third
determines their status as an inferior minority. These mechanisms
are meant to engrave in the consciousness of the East Jerusalemites
that they are subtenants, living in the city under sufferance of
the Jewish authorities. Otherwise, it is not possible to explain
why the municipality demolishes "illegal" houses on out-of-the-way
hilltops where no Jewish foot had ever trod. More than 700 houses
have been destroyed in the last decade just to show who's
boss2.
The Motive behind Municipal Policy
The source of this municipal policy toward East Jerusalem derives
from a combination of ideological motives and a discriminatory
organizational culture. The ideological motive is based on the
belief that Jerusalem belongs to the Jewish people exclusively.
This ideology extends even to those areas arbitrarily annexed in
1967, which were never part of historic Jerusalem. The
discriminatory practices are carried out people who are motivated
neither by rightist ideology nor nationalist attitudes. Indeed,
these are professionals, not racists, who administer a racist
policy.
This phenomenon is reminiscent of European colonial policy in Asia
and Africa where the colonial authorities avoided racial hatred
while cold-bloodedly exploiting the locals. They simply carried out
their jobs as expected of civil servants of an imperial power. A
similar situation exists in the Jerusalem City Hall. Liberal
people, free of racist motives, carry out discriminatory policy in
the name of the "current mandatory power," i.e., the State of
Israel.
A senior administrator in the municipality does not require
specific directives to discriminate against the eastern part of the
city. This policy is maintained by covert codes, and the message
trickles down and is copied at all levels. Like all bureaucratic
institutions, the municipality requires of its employees adherence
to its guiding principles. One of the most effective methods of
perpetuating the system is by rewarding and advancing like-minded
officials. An ambitious official learns quickly that those who toe
the line are rewarded accordingly and the naysayers pay the price.
This behavior effectively transforms all those who conform to it
into an element of the racist municipal machine.
The sociologist Ralph Linto3 has noted that an organization
sometimes develops values different from those of its members.
Furthermore, in certain situations people can maintain more than
one set of values and even conflicting values. Thus, a municipal
employee can act according to liberal values outside the office and
conform to different, even totalitarian, values while carrying out
his city duties.
Prof. Dan Horowitz finds an explanation for this behavior in what
he terms the "operational code" of the 1948 generation.4 He
believes that the '48 generation, which eventually took over the
national leadership, blurred the concepts of justice and equality
because of "security considerations" and left a wide span of wiggle
room. This gap between vision and execution exists not only in the
Arab context, but also with regard to every ethical issue. The
executive rank does maintain high moral principles, but these are
overridden by force of circumstance. This permissive attitude to
matters of principle, which Horowitz calls "constructive
hypocrisy," enables the executive to overcome the cognitive
dissonance involved in discrimination and gives legitimacy to all
deviations. In this manner, the executive rank can live in
tranquility with the discrimination, since in the background the
vision remains, and keeps them enlightened and humane.
The Mindset
The organizational culture that rules in the municipality was not
conceived in the corridors of city hall. It is the recycling of a
type of behavior that migrated from the army to Safra Square. The
fact that more than half of the senior municipal officials came
from the army has a direct impact on the aforementioned
discrimination. In the army mindset, which these officials bring
with them, the Arab is always an enemy, even if he is a resident of
the state. According to Kenneth Boulding's characterization, it is
possible to say that force is a major component of the personality
of these officials and this is reflected in their mode of
administration, the basis of their definition of the collective,
their way of dividing the national resources, and socio-political
elements.
This set of power values has entrenched itself in the local culture
and influences all interaction between Jews and Arabs. The attitude
of the municipal officials is simply a local emulation of the
overall attitude in the civil service towards Arabs in general. The
municipal planning policy for East Jerusalem is similar to the
expropriation of land from Arabs in the Galilee and the Negev, just
as the discriminatory budgetary practices toward the east of the
city are local versions of the discriminatory government practices
against the Israeli-Arab sector.
This mindset is reinforced by the deep feeling that the city is
still in the throes of a war for survival. Powerful forces threaten
the Jewish character of the city, therefore all action to
strengthen the Jewish majority is justified and necessary.
Technocrats of Discrimination
Thus the municipal professionals play ball with the political
echelon. The considerations that motivate them are basically
professional, but surprisingly conform to purely political
objectives. A dangerous symbiosis between the political and
professional echelons is established. The officials responsible for
city planning are a perfect example of the problematic cooperation
between the administration and professionals. These are
professional architects, devoid of any political party
considerations, yet their behavior serves a rightist political
agenda. For example, in 2005 they decided not to grant building
permits in Wadi Kadoum and in A-Tur, because these were piecemeal
plans, not part of an overall concept for the area. In principle,
this is a legitimate requirement; however, in view of the fact that
since 1967, planning for East Jerusalem has proceeded at a snail's
pace, what solution is there for the legitimate needs of the
residents of the area? How can one demand of residents to wait
until the municipality sees fit to prepare an overall plan for the
area, when they know that City Hall has no budget (and is not
ready) to invest in such an ambitious project?
The "enlightened" members of the city's Legal Department imposed
impossible administrative conditions on those seeking building
permits. A Palestinian requesting a building permit is required to
produce authorization from the "arrangement official" that there
are no further claims on the plot in the Jordanian claims index,
authorization from the Custodian of Abandoned Property that they
have no claim to the property, and authorization from the "mapping
center" that the plot has been properly identified.
Most difficult was the requirement that the property owners produce
authorization from the Land Registry that the property had been
registered in their name, a rarity in East Jerusalem, where
properties are not usually registered in the Land Registry. It is
possible to carry out an "initial registration," but this leads to
a potential problem - if the property has been divided among many
heirs, and one of them lives on part of the property, then the
Custodian of Abandoned Property becomes a "partner" of the
property. All these provision are anchored in law; however, the
legal experts chose to ignore the fact that the law was intended to
serve the interests of the Jewish majority, and does not
necessarily suit the Palestinian reality.
These lawyers, and the municipal administration served as "the
executive arm of political decisions."5 The system is bolstered by
hundreds of lower ranking officials carrying out their professional
duties. The municipal welfare department remains silent in the face
of the demolition of homes that demolished families, leaving deep
psychological scars in children and deepened their plight. This is
the case of officials in other department, who have unintentionally
become the technocrats of the occupation.
Gray Racism
This is how an organizational culture that boosts racism has
developed. Its strength lies in the fact that it is not overt and
obvious, but hides behind neutral rhetoric. It is always
camouflaged by consensual phraseology with a thin façade of
liberal cosmetics. Thus a unique style of behavior, unknown in the
profession literature, was created in our land: "gray racism" - not
racism that is fed by hatred of the other, but rather "lite-racism"
that is sustained by indifference, inertia, bureaucracy and the
force of habit. When all those deprived are of the same people,
there is no alternative to call it by its name - "ethnic
discrimination," the twin of the notorious "racial
discrimination."
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