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From Israel Hayom, By Leora Levian 18-11-2020 https://tinyurl.com/y42lkpyf
Anyone who stands in
the neglected Jerusalem neighborhoodsand shouts that it is
"Palestine" is about as relevant as someone standing on the outskirts
of Bethelehem, calling it part of east Jerusalem.
Anyone who heard the reports about
the approval of a construction plan for the Givat Hamatos neighborhood in east
Jerusalem could get the impression that it was a real estate jewel on which the
Israeli government wanted to build luxury apartments, make a fortune, and on
the way torpedo the dream of a territorially contiguous Palestinian states.
But the neglected caravan site with the impressive view is, first
of all, a human story, a social one, a story about domestic issues in Israel.
In the 1990s it was populated by hundreds of families who arrived as part of
the large waves of aliyah from Ethiopia and lived there until they could move
into permanent accommodations. They were joined by a few dozen families in need
of emergency housing, and they are the ones who live in the
"neighborhood" – a slightly puffed-up name for a twisted road with
broken streetlights, stray dogs, and broken-down mobile homes.
I know Givat Hamatos well because I
arrived there in 2009 after I called all the community centers in the area and
realized that the neglected site was a former part of Jerusalem. There were
four of us, looking to make the world a better place, who came to fill the
social and educational vacuum. We set up a clubhouse for children and teens
that is still in operation. For some, it rescued them. We became an integral
part of the place the responsibility for which has been passed back and forth
between the Jerusalem Municipality and the Housing and Construction Ministry's
Amidar building company for years.
Once every few years, including this week, the neglected
neighborhood makes it into the headlines. "Construction in east
Jerusalem," the left-wing organizations cry, and envoys of the European
Union rush to criticize the "attack on the peace process." Former US
Ambassador Martin Indyk took to Twitter to ask if Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu wanted to "embarrass" President-elect Joe Biden through
controversial construction in Jerusalem.
But the "peace process" hasn't been on the agenda for a
long time now, and the "embarrassing" construction includes hundreds
of housing units for the adjacent Arab neighborhood of Beit Zafafa, and Givat
Hamatos – get ready for this – is in the far south of the city, near Bethlehem
and Gush Etzion, not in its east. This perfect disorientation is so symbolic of
those who in the name of a dream ignore reality; those who seek out Palestinian
"oppression" and are blind to the fact that real people are
already living there. Before they run to lay out the borders of an imaginary
Palestinian state, maybe they could turn the spotlight (and resources) to the
big questions involving the people who live there now: questions of housing and
education policies; personal responsibility and government planning; massive
investment in certain sectors while others are ignored; historical mistakes and
who is responsible for fixing them.
Anyone who has a hammer sees only nails; anyone who has European
funding sees only a problem of Israel oppressing the Palestinians. But anyone
who stands on Givat Hamatos and screams "Palestine!" is about as
relevant as someone who stands on the outskirts of Bethlehem and calls it
"east Jerusalem."
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