Palestinians, a large Jerusalem minority, feel Trump snub

Pedestrians walk on a thick layer of soot from tires set ablaze in frequent clashes with Israeli troops. Cars navigate around potholes in streets littered with garbage. Motorists honk in a traffic jam near an Israeli checkpoint that is framed by the towering cement slabs of Israel’s separation barrier.

It is morning rush hour in Ras Khamis, a neglected, restive Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem where US President Donald Trump’s recent recognition of the contested city as Israel’s capital has been met by cynicism, defiance and new fears that Palestinians will increasingly be marginalized.

Trump’s pivot on Jerusalem “is regrettable, saddening and unfair,” said Yasser Khatib, 42, who runs a supermarket across the street from the barrier that separates several Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem from the rest of the city.

Khatib said he has strong religious ties to the city and that his family’s roots go back generations. “We have no life without Jerusalem,” he said, while selling snacks to school children. “Trump can say whatever he wants.”

Palestinians make up 37 percent of Jerusalem’s population of 866,000, up from 26 percent in 1967 when Israel captured east Jerusalem, expanded the city’s boundaries into the West Bank and annexed the enlarged municipal area to its capital.

The international community says east Jerusalem is occupied territory and that the city’s fate must be determined by negotiations with the Palestinians who seek a capital in the eastern sector.

Trump couched his Jerusalem comments — viewed in the Arab world as a show of pro-Israel bias — by saying he is not taking a position on the boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in the city.

Yet he made no specific mention of the city’s large Palestinian population, which could reach 44 percent by 2040, according to the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research think tank.

Despite Israel’s portrayal of Jerusalem as united, there are stark differences between Arab and Jewish areas after what critics say is half a century of neglect and discrimination.

“On the ground, Israel is not investing much in developing the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem,” said Yitzhak Reiter, who is in charge of the Jerusalem Institute’s mapping of the physical and social infrastructure of Arab neighborhoods.

In many spheres, “the city is still divided, with two different transport systems, two different policies on building and construction,” he said, adding that Israel would have to invest billions of dollars in Arab areas to reach parity with Jewish neighborhoods.

For now, 79 percent of Arab residents fall below the poverty line, compared with 27 percent of Jews, according to Jerusalem Institute figures.

Welfare services maintain four offices in the Arab east, compared with 19 offices in Jewish areas, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) said.

Arab schools have a shortage of hundreds of classrooms, and the west has 34 post offices, compared with nine in the east, the association added.

However, Mayor Nir Barkat’s office said he has developed a plan “unprecedented in scope and budget allocation to reduce gaps in east Jerusalem” and has made progress in alleviating “50 years of neglect” inherited from predecessors.

Among other things, the city has opened more than 800 classrooms in Arab schools, with 1,000 more in the pipeline, the statement said.