Between two worlds: The unique situation of East Jerusalem Palestinians

[Little Tich]

Source: Jerusalem Post

For east Jerusalem Palestinians with an identity tied to a residency card, al-Aksa is their strongest symbol. They are prepared to live and die by it.

The Abna Al Quds Community Center is an unexpected oasis on the roofs of the Old City. Entering through Herod’s Gate, one makes an immediate right up the staircase and keeps winding right on a sloping ascent.

Through the stone archway, one comes upon 320 sq. meters of – just about – open space. There’s a soccer pitch with Suleiman’s 16th century walls as its sideline; a graduation ceremony of a first aid course is taking place in one of the halls; and boys and girls are throwing around a basketball on what doubles as a tennis court. It’s quiet here, compared to the bustle of Damascus Gate.

Suheil Omari has been the general director here for the past five years. Originally from the north of Israel, he travels two or three times a week to the community center from his home in Nazareth Illit.

Omari makes clear that his most passionate work is speaking out against child marriages, girls being married off at the age of 16 and even younger – but the center, which serves hundreds of east Jerusalem Palestinian’s, deals with issues that are unique just to this population.

Read more: http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Between-two-worlds-455839

[Little Tich]

1. OP continued:

There are 28 Arab neighborhoods and villages that fall within Jerusalem’s municipality with as many as 350,000 residents, most of whom identify as Palestinian.

They align themselves with the Palestinian cause, yet don’t live under the Palestinian Authority.

Omari says that the community he serves is of two minds. They are entitled to social benefits, health insurance, allowances for children and the elderly, but their Jerusalem residency status is always under threat of being taken away if it’s shown that they no longer live in Jerusalem. This push and pull – being part, but not wholly, of Israel – creates paranoia when dealing with the civil administration. Problems are solved in the traditional sense, between the family and community, and if necessary, through a conduit who has good relations with the government.

“The whole climate of these problems can make people suspicious about anything that can be done for them,” Omari says. “They address me, not the municipality; I contact the municipality.”

According to a 2015 survey by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, 75.4 percent of east Jerusalem Palestinians live below the poverty line, 83.9% of whom are children; the school dropout rate was 26% for 11th grade and 33% in 12th grade.

In a 2013 report by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, the authors wrote that “all of the Arab neighborhoods were classified in the low socioeconomic group” and that “the extent of poverty within the non-Jewish population of Jerusalem was significantly higher than within the Jewish population.”

Read more: http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Between-two-worlds-455839

[Igel]

3. Yeah, but those numbers are meaningful.

High drop-out rate predisposes to low-paying jobs.

Moreover, of the 75% in poverty, 84% are under 18. Now, if the kids are in poverty their parents certainly are. So if I have 1000 Palestinians chosen randomly I'm going to find 160 adults and 840 kids? That argues for either a skewed fertility rate for poor Arabs in Jerusalem or something else is going on.

Still, it's a truism that the easiest way for a low-income worker to fall under the poverty line is to have another child. In most countries these days, it's low income families that go on to have the largest number of children, on average, so that heart-wrenching disproportionately large number of kids in poverty is not going away. It's not a free-standing fact caused simply by family-external factors and while the inconvenience of finding child-care may lower incomes, that's a knock-on effect of having more kids. Whatever a 16-year-old has internalized is largely predictive of both family size and income, before either is actually realized. (Apparently Jewish fertility is a tad higher in Jerusalem than Arab, but I'm not sure that this violates that general rule. A lot of ultra-orthodox are not what one would call wealthy.)

[Little Tich]

4. I think a better comparison would comparing Palestinians in East Jerusalem with black Americans in

in the South during the Jim Crow era.

In both cases the low socioeconomic status was enforced from above as a system of discrimination. Actually, the Arabs probably have it worse, as they don't have civil rights, which means that they can't do sit-ins or demonstrate for their constitutional rights. At least black people were allowed to be judged in the same courts as whites, the kangaroo part being prejudice and unfair interpretations of law.

I think that the comparison with ultra-orthodox is false - they're not oppressed by Apartheid or unfair application of the law.

[libodem]

2. Interesting