I and some colleagues had a tour around the Old City of Jerusalem today. The so-called Old City is the walled in area of modern day Jerusalem and is a mere square kilometer in size but yet contains some of the most holy sites on earth and a religious diversity probably unparalleled among its people. This city is the real snag in any current peace process between the Palestinians and the Israelis and such negotiations are often delayed as no real solution has been accepted by any party. However, on our tour around it is clear that the Israelis have the upper hand through the simple observation of municipal services. The taxes paid are the same for all but there is next to no service delivery for the Arab quarters. I am not an expert on the history of the city so I am not going to even try but since the annexation of the city by the Israelis in on 6 June, 1967, the demographics of the city and its buildings have undergone extensive refurbishing and it becomes clear that steps for the Israeli wish for a ‘clean, Jewish City’ are progressing. Even in the Arab quarter you see Israeli flags hanging from the windows, placed there by the Jewish settlers, methodically trying to squeeze the Arabs out.
The settler issue is a complicated one and I won’t tackle it here and will post some links to experts in future posts soon. But what I did find interesting was the relative lack of security surveillance cameras in the Jewish Quarter in comparison to the Muslim Quarter and to a lesser extent the Christian and Armenian Quarters. If the cameras are for security and there to protect the Jewish population it would make more sense to place more cameras in the Jewish Quarter I would think. An Arabic stencil graffiti says much, it reads, “Beware, cameras are everywhere”.
