Those evil Zionists start looking better when the Palestinian Authority is coming.
By Ronny Shaked for Ynet News (thanks to all who sent this in):
In the months leading up to the upcoming Annapolis peace conference talk of a future division of the city has prompted a staggering increase in nationalization requests by Palestinians seeking to escape life under the Palestinian Authority.Some 250,000 Palestinians currently reside in Jerusalem. Only 12,000 of them have sought to obtain an Israeli citizenship since 1967, an average of about 300 new citizens a year.
But over the past four months the Interior Ministry has registered an unprecedented 3,000 applications, primarily residents of the Arab neighborhoods unlikely to remain under Israeli sovereignty according to the political initiative currently on the agenda.
The 240,000 non-naturalized Palestinians in the city currently hold the status of permanent residents. As Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem they were also eligible to participate in the elections held by the Palestinian Authority.
As accepting Israeli citizenship was viewed by many within the community as tantamount to treason, most Palestinians opted to remain permanent residents and enjoy the benefits of living under Israeli sovereignty – full welfare rights, municipal voting rights and unrestricted movement - without putting their loyalty to the Palestinian Authority into question. The average Palestinian family in East Jerusalem currently receives a $770 monthly stipend from Israel.
"They've weighed the pros and cons of life under the Palestinian Authority and those under Israel and they've chosen," said residents in East Jerusalem of their naturalization-seeking neighbors.
I don't blame them. Why live in a war-torn place where neither faction (Fatah/Hamas) gives a crap about them when you can live in a prosperous democracy? It's an easy choice to make.
Yes, and not only do they want a government of laws, but they also want to keep receiving that excellent health care that the Arabs have always receiving, free of charge (see the residents of Shuafat), from Western-style hospitals and doctors that the perfidious Israelis insist upon offering them. No doubt it must be some kind of Zionist trick, but what kind, even the antisemitic reporters of the BBC(but Barbara Plett is off in Afghanistan, and Lyse Doucett has been sent to Pakistan, and Orla Guerin, when last heard from, had been sent to report from South Africa, far from her beloved "Palestinians" -- though the rot remains at the head, with John Simpson and others still strutting about Bush House) and Agence France Press (say, how is Charles Ederlin doing, and what about those missing minutes of film in the Al-Doura frame-up?
If Israel is smart they'll reject these applications. The last thing they need is for these new "citizens" to vote Israel right out of existence.
Stop saying "I don't blame them".
They have made their own bed, let them fester in it.
Give them their palestine whether they want it or not. Their fellow arab countrymen have deemed it so, and the Israeli arabs have done nothing to counteract this point of view. Give them to eachother, that they may know one another. It's about time they found out.
This isn't a good thing at all. Every place where Muslims go violence, criminal activity and cultural suppression follow.
Israel needs to reject these applicants.
Amazing. The Palis voted for Hamas and now they want to move?
"Amazing. The Palis voted for Hamas and now they want to move?"
Yes. That's about it. They have fouled their own nest, so now they want to foul someone elses.
Conversion to Judaism should be a pre-condition
Israel needs more 5th Columnists like a hole in the head.
My sentiments exactly. Terrorist activities within Israel would be much easier to plan and execute for Israeli citizens within Israel's borders than for anyone else.
It is impossible to understand WHY Israel lets muslims into their country at all.
If Israel is smart they'll reject these applications. The last thing they need is for these new "citizens" to vote Israel right out of existence.
Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS
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Many of the these applicants are indigenous Palestinian Christians whom the Muslims have forced out of Bethlehem, Ramallah, Hebron, are other cities now under PA rule. These refugees will be an asset to Israel.
I agree with Provoslavni - No Muslims need apply.
...where ever Muslims go, explosions soon follow...
Boom, Boom, Boom
- John Lee Hooker
"The average Palestinian family in East Jerusalem currently receives a $770 monthly stipend from Israel."
Wait, what? Why? WHY? Why does Israel seem intent on slowly committing suicide? Somebody please explain this to me.
It is impossible to understand WHY Israel lets muslims into their country at all.
Uh, the Israelis didn't "let" the Moslems into East Jerusalem. The Moslems (and the Christian Arabs) were already there when the Israelis conquered it in 1967.
The average Palestinian family in East Jerusalem currently receives a $770 monthly stipend from Israel.
Jesus.
What is incomprehensible is why, in June 1967, Israel -- with the memory of its miraculous victory and its recently threatened annihilation (those crazed Cairene crowds of May, 1967 were still in everyone's memory), the Israelis were too blind to simply annex all of what was rightfuly theirs by the terms of the only document that counted - the League of Nations' Mandate for Palestine. There would have been Arab screaming, but not any more so than there has been since. Some Arabs might have left, others might have stayed and accepted their fate, and the fait accompli. It was up to the Israeli elite to prepare the people for such a move, and they didn't do it. Why, it didn't even occur to them. They have not intelligently stood up for their own rights, nor made those rights -- legal, political, historic -- clear to a very forgetful, and very ignorant, world. There's still time to remedy that, but not with people of Olmert's caliber still in power. Not up to it, not even aware of what they're not up to.
Remember when Fatah supporters were fleeing to Israel to escape the slaughter in Gaza at the hands of their Hamas co-religionists? It was *Israel* that came under harsh criticism for not processing the refugees quickly enough.
Of course, they just wanted to make sure they admitting known terrorists as refugees (and this doesn't even address the many potential terrorists surely to be found amoung Fatah members). None the less, many castigated Israel for not simply throwing open the border.
This issue of citizenship will be more of the same.
Seamus,
The old city of Jerusalem was divided into four quarters from the time of early Turkish rule. One quarter was Jewish and two quarters were Christian representing the percentages of population. The Muslim rulers kept one quarter for themselves.
Since the sixteenth century, the Jewish population began a steady increase and around two cenruries ago, Jews became a majority in Jerusalem. The Christian population remained steady but, as shopkeepers and professionals, they were the most prosperous segment of the population. The massive increase in Muslims is a very recent phenomenon, happening mostly after Israel united Jerusalem and started giving Muslims generous welfare payments.
Provoslavni: I'm pretty sure that the Israelis have not been permitting any Arab immigration into East Jerusalem. When Israel conquered and annexed East Jerusalem in 1967, it allowed those then resident there to have permanent Israeli residence, and to apply for Israeli citizenship. Those who refused citizenship (the overwhelming majority) are liable to revocation of their permanent residency if they live abroad or take citizenship in another country. If the Moslem population of East Jerusalem has been growing, it's almost certainly because of natural increase.
Seamus,
Actually one of the great unreported stories of the last few decades has been the massive Muslim immigration to Israel as well as Jewish and Christian emigration out of Israel. Most of these Muslims, like illegal immigrants into the US and Europe, are economic migrants. The largest group has come across the pourous Israel-Lebanese border. However it is only when a Muslim sneaks across this border for a terror attack it gets reported.
Beyond this, thousands have snuck in by crossing the Jordan River or walking in through the Negev. Beyond politics and religion this is simply a natural phenomenon anytime you have one country (in this case Israel) with a vibrant economy and generous welfare benefits bordering other countries in poverty and squalor.
Clearly the best solution for Israel (or France, Germany, the UK etc.) would be to abolish the welfare state and free up the economy. Unfortunately, because of Israel's powerful labour unions and socialist heritage, not even Likud has been willing to do this.
Provoslavni: The illegal immigrants you are speaking of are not those who have residency permits in East Jerusalem and are now applying for citizenship. My original comment, BTW, was in response to a comment that said it was "impossible to understand WHY Israel lets muslims into their country at all." If we're talking about illegal immigration, then we aren't talking about anyone who is being "let" into the country at all, since they are coming in against the will of the government.
Nevertheless, these Muslims are coming... and in droves!
As for the new applicants, as I wrote above, many of these are Christians who have been forced out of Ramallah, Bethlehem, etc. The Christians of Jerusalem gladly accepted Israeli citizenship back when it became available to them. I know many of these Palestinian Christians personally and, despite the Jewish State's often discriminitory policies, they are loyal Israelis.
This news item strikes me as positive--not only are these people voting with their feet, but they expose the lies of "Zionism is racism"; "Zionists are colonialist occupiers"; and "Zionism is apartheid." In my mind, extending citizenship to those seeking it within greater Jerusalem is extending Israeli sovereignty over the city.
Believing, as I do, that Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem have constituted a majority of its population since at least 1860, and that indigenous Jews have always been present in Palestine, I am incensed by the idea that Jews are alien interlopers and supplanters there.
John C, the above statements may be lies but no Pali sympathiser will ever admit it or acknowledge it, not for one second.
Can't give up the fantasy, you see.
Middles east version of "Run for the border!"
lol
This news item strikes me as positive--not only are these people voting with their feet, but they expose the lies of "Zionism is racism"; "Zionists are colonialist occupiers"; and "Zionism is apartheid."
Not really. Back when it was white-ruled, South Africa faced a problem of illegal immigration of blacks from the rest of Africa. So immigration by members of the supposedly oppressed population is demonstrably not inconsistent with apartheid--in this case, literal apartheid.