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.
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