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sonz
06-18-2006, 07:02 AM
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Palestinians of the neighborhood of Silwan in Al-Quds (occupied East Jerusalem) have been complaining about arbitrary Israeli taxes, which they are forced to pay but receive nothing in return, leaving their district in an entire mess unlike the Jewish districts that generally have well-maintained infrastructure.

"The people here have to pay taxes [to Israel] but they receive nothing in return," Silwan's unofficial mayor, Lutfi Siam, 56, told Reuters Friday, June 16.

Municipal taxes are paid by the estimated 50,000 Palestinian inhabitants to fund services like sewage, schooling, road-works, garbage collection and street lighting.

But a visit to the Silwan neighborhood shows the opposite.

Roads are riddled with potholes, paths are smashed or non-existent, telephone and electricity cables hang limp and rubbish is piled in festering heaps on corners.

"Even the [Israeli] government knows there is no equality between east and west in Jerusalem," added Siam, who has lived all his life in Silwan.

"They give us none of their budget."

Figures from 2003, the latest year available, show that Arab residents received only 12 percent of the budget, according to Meir Margalit, an Israeli historian and former city councilor.

Poverty rate among the Arab residents is almost twice that of Jewish population. Arab residents are also suffering high unemployment rates.

The climate, Margalit said, is the result of "politically motivated discrimination" against the Palestinian residents.

"We Are Staying"

Siam believes that the provocative Israeli policy was aimed at driving the indigenous Palestinians out.

"They don't want Palestinian people to stay in Silwan ... They want to take us off the map, but we are staying. No matter what they do," Siam challenged.

Nearly 200,000 Jews have moved into East Jerusalem since 1967 to cement Israel's grip over the city.

Already 47 percent of East Jerusalem population is Jewish and more Jews are moving in as wealthy settler organizations seek to change the demographics of the city.

Around 100 Ultra Orthodox Jews live in Silwan and more are buying property.

Their presence in the city has compounded the frustration of Arabs, who find it hard to get building permits from the authorities and end up extending their homes illegally.

Two months ago, Siam received a notice says the rest of his home, built in the mid-1970 would be destroyed on claims of illegal extension.

Backed by court orders and wealthy donors, ultra-nationalist Jewish groups continue to evict indigenous Palestinians from their homes in Al-Quds in forced transfers of property to Jewish settlers.

In March last year, Israel's Maariv newspaper reported that foreign Jewish investors had paid millions of dollars to buy two large properties at Jaffa Gate, the main entrance to Al-Quds’s Old City, in a secret deal with the Greek Orthodox Church.

The Palestinians maintain that purchasing property in the Old City is part of a scheme to judaize the holy city, which they want as the capital of their long-awaited state.

Isolated

Stoking the frustration of the Silwan inhabitants is the Israeli separation wall, which snakes through the occupied West Bank and cuts off Silwan's residents from relatives, leaving them in a no man's land — not fully part of Jerusalem and not part of the West Bank either.

The 700km-long wall has resulted in the confiscation of 11,4000 dunums (2,850 acres - 1,140 hectares) of privately-owned Palestinian land and in the destruction of 102,320 trees, according to a UN report.

It estimated that with the competition of the wall, 30 percent of the West Bank population, or some 680,000 people, will be "directly harmed".

After the International Court of Justice issued a landmark ruling branding the wall as illegal, the UN General Assembly asked Israel to tear it down and compensate the Palestinians affected.

Last August, the International Crisis Group, an independent think-tank, examined fears of Silwan residents in a report called "The Jerusalem Powder Keg".

"Current policies in and around the city will vastly complicate, and perhaps doom, future attempts to resolve the conflict," the authors wrote.

"None of this is good for the Palestinian people, the people of Israel, or the peace process," they said.

http://islamonline.net/English/News/2006-06/17/04.shtml
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