ARE they coming to their senses? French President Sarkozy’s speech at the Israeli Knesset last week, calling on Israel to freeze its settlement activities in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and asking Israel to accept Arab East Jerusalem as the capital of the independent Palestinian state, constitutes a major advancement on the position of France, a major European country, vis-à-vis the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In July, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will visit Israel and Palestine. To the Palestinian people, Britain is as guilty as Israel in causing the Palestinian Nakba 60 years ago. Since then Britain has always been in tune with the position of the United States, granting Israel their unconditional support.

The least Brown can do in his upcoming visit to Palestine is to adopt the new French position, and declare Britain’s support for Arab East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state. Declaring and supporting the Palestinian people on the question of Arab East Jerusalem is fundamental if the peace process is to go anywhere. This is also fundamental in order to send Israel the message that whatever changes it has made in Arab East Jerusalem does not give it any right, and if Israel does not stop its destructive policies in the city, peace will be impossible to achieve, and regional and world peace will be perpetually threatened.

This is being said because Arab East Jerusalem is in extreme danger. Since 1967, Arab East Jerusalem has been robbed of its Arab and Islamic character, its land confiscated for Jewish-only use, its history distorted and changed, its people fragmented, demonized and squeezed out.

When talking about Israel’s robbery of Arab East Jerusalem, we are not talking about something that is abstract. Concrete measures are being taken by the Israeli government and its various organs in the city to achieve their eventual goal of Judaizing the city, and minimizing, if not eliminating, the Palestinian presence.

The Jewish municipality of Jerusalem ignores the presence of 256,000 Palestinians who pay 25 percent of the municipality’s budget, and hardly provides any municipal services to them. It plans to build 40,000 apartments in the city for the sole use of Jewish immigrants, as if the thousands of Palestinian couples do not need housing, or tens of thousands of Palestinian school children don’t need classes.

In the Old City and its northeast, Wadi El-Joz, El-Tur, Essawiyyeh and Lifta, Ateret Cohanim is conniving to steal and control Islamic and Christian properties. To the east of Arab Jerusalem, Israel plans to implement its so-called E1 plan to enlarge the Jewish settlement of Maaleh Adumim. In Silwan, Ras El Amud, Jabal El Mukaber i.e. the south and south east of the city, the Elad settler organization is using every means possible to evict the Palestinian Jerusalemites from their land and homes.

The Israeli Housing Ministry has issued tenders for no less than 8,000 apartments since the Annapolis “peace” conference. Large tracts of land planted with olive groves were destroyed by Israeli bulldozers in Beit Hanina last week. Official departments, such as the Israel Antiquities Authority, and the so-called National Parks Authority work as subcontractors for the Jewish settler group Elad, effectively stealing Palestinian land in Arab East Jerusalem under the guise of claiming them as national parks or areas to be excavated and subsequently hand them over to Elad.

The suffering and misery caused by Elad to the people of Silwan (a neighborhood in Jerusalem) is immeasurable, and the people of Silwan’s past, present and future are threatened with elimination.

As things stand now, the so-called “Garden of the King” or Al-Bustan area with its 88 Palestinian homes, are slated to be demolished on orders from the Jerusalem Municipality and the Israeli courts. According to the Jerusalem Municipality lawyer Yossi Chabilio, out of 88 houses in the “Garden of the King”, seven have been demolished, 40 are in various stages of court proceedings to demolish them. Suits against 20 others are in the works, and the structures will be demolished for “special reasons” if the court consented. Some 10 structures are not residential, and seven were built before 1967. Chabilio bragged that since 2004, not a single structure in the area has been erected.

The Elad settler group, supported and financed by Jewish billionaires from Russia, the UK, America, and Israel, are implementing a plan to empty the Silwan Wadi Helweh area of its indigenous Palestinian population. Palestinians on their own are unable to stop this Israeli government-backed settler “tsunami” engulfing the totality of Arab East Jerusalem with both its Islamic and Christian components. And, to be frank, apart from empty talk and slogans, the PNA is unable to do anything of substance to turn the tide or even minimize the damage.

The West must understand that the PNA and President Mahmoud Abbas will not sign any agreement with Israel without the return of Arab East Jerusalem. Effective and immediate changes in Israeli policies with regard to Arab East Jerusalem should be demanded now. Peace begins and ends in Jerusalem. The Israeli actions in Jerusalem are viewed by Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims as an act of war. If the West wants peace, it must stop the Israeli war waged against Arab East Jerusalem immediately.

w.m.awad@gmail.com