Expert: Arabs will cry for al-Quds
Palestinian expert on Jewish settlements says Arab claim to Jerusalem is in jeopardy; 'Arabs will cry for Jerusalem like they did for Andalusia,' he says
"The Arabs will cry for Jerusalem as they cried for Andalusia. While the Israelis allocate billions of dollars to change the face of the city, to shrink Arab presence and boost its Jewish population, the Arabs are doing nothing to challenge this," Khalil al-Tawfakgi was quoted Wednesday in the London-based Arabic-language daily al-Hayat.
Taking issue with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's realignment plan, Tawfakgi told the newspaper that Israel plans to reduce Jerusalem's 200,000-strong Arab population to 80,000 by 2020.
"The problem is that Olmert was the mayor of Jerusalem since 1994 and he knows every stone in the city, so he included an article on Jerusalem in his plan with the aim of expelling most of the city's (Arab) residents," he told the newspaper.
Security fence
The expert said the Palestinian demographic threat to the Jewish majority in the Holy City prompted Israel to build Jewish neighborhoods around Arab East Jerusalem which it captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, pointing that the Jewish population in these areas today numbers 182,000.
Tawfakgi added that the security barrier being built around Jerusalem is the centerpiece of the Jewish State's plan to expel most of the city's Arab residents to the West Bank.
"Israel found that the number of Arabs is alarmingly increasing so it had recourse to the surgical policy of separation, which is based on isolating Arab residential areas in the city and gradually linking them to the West Bank," he said.
Hope for the future?
Asked by al-Hayat what the Arabs should do to counter Israel's policies in the disputed city, Tawfakgi said: "I want to ask the special committee for Jerusalem Affairs set up by the Palestine Liberation Organization: What have you done to boost Arab presence in al-Quds? I know much of what Jews around the world do to change the face of Jerusalem, but I know nothing of what the Arabs do."
Tawfakgi, who like most Palestinians in East Jerusalem carries the Jordanian nationality, lashed out at the Jordanian government for failing to "protect our right to stay in our city."
"The Jordanians should try to do something on this front, and maybe they can succeed because of a legal argument which is that we have fallen under Israeli occupation and we bear the Jordanian nationality."
