JERUSALEM

Jerusalem: Palestinian Dynamics of Resistance and Urban Change, 1967-94

Table of Contents

Prologue
1. Introduction: A Few Words About Urban Movements
2. The Israelisation and Municipal Integration in East Jerusalem
3. Aspects of Palestinian Strategy and Practices of Resistance in East Jerusalem
a) Geographical Centrality
b) Political and Symbolic Centrality
c) The Dual Dimension of Resistance: National and Local
d) The Status of the Palestinian Community of East Jerusalem
4. Periodisation of National & Local Practices and Strategies of Resistance
a) 1967-1974: Preservation of the Arab institutions
b) 1975-1987: Sumudisme versus Popular resistance
c) 1987-1991: Intifada
d) 1991-1994: Negotiations
5. Conclusion
6. FootNotes

PROLOGUE

The following paper emerges from a preliminary part of broader field research for a Ph.D. thesis in Urban Studies at the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM). The field research is conducted with the support of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) based in Ottawa and the Fonds pour I'Aide a la Recherche (FCAR) in Quebec. While conducting her field research, Mme Latendresse was affiliated with Birzeit University in the West Bank.

This article is informed by a body of research which focuses primarily on the role of the various social actors in the process of urban transformation. The current urban crisis raging in cities in the South as well as the North demands an investigation into the role of civil society, focusing in particular on the role of citizens' movements in taking charge of their own wants and needs and in the democratisation of urban economic, political, social and cultural life. This article aims to contribute in a modest way to the thinking and practices of the various Palestinian organisations centered on preserving East Jerusalem, its territory, community and identity. It is also hoped, that it will serve as a contribution into the field of research and initiatives on the ground practiced in both the South and North, which advocate "the right to the city" (Henri Lefebvre).

INTRODUCTION :

1. A Few Words About Urban Movements

The study of urban movements¹ or social urban movements² initiated by sociologists in the late 1970s, explores the actions of city dwellers in the process of transforming their city. In urban sociology it is now recognized that cities cannot be defined simply by its economic structure and/or technology. Rather, they must be analysed within their historical and socio-cultural context, as constituting a dynamic of opposing forces (different groups of actors) within a set time and space.

As Castells cites :

Cities, like all social reality, are historical products not only in their physicality but in their cultural meaning, in the role they play in the social organisation and in people's lives. The basic dimension in urban change is the debate between social classes and historical actors over the meaning of urban, the significance of spatial forms in the social structure, and the content, hierarchy and destiny of cities in relation to the entire social structure. A city (and each type of city) is what a historical society decides the city (and each city) will be. Urban is the social meaning assigned to a particular spatial form by a historically defined society³ .

If the city, its territory, function and form, are the result of a historical and socio-cultural process in which various actors play off of each other in both the short - and long-term, then analysis of urban transformation process must take into consideration not only the actions of the dominant groups but also those of the dominated. Nonetheless, those dominated, whether underprivileged social classes, minority ethnic groups, youth or women, can promote alternate definitions of the city and alternative practices through their active opposition to the ruling class. Several monographs discuss the various experiences of urban movements, highlighting actions of citizens' groups which collectively mobilise around urban issues both in industrialised countries and countries of the South. Manuel Castells, in The City and the Grassroots, attempted to demonstrate how action by citizens' movements can lead to urban social change which combines urban, political and cultural changes within the context of a broader social transformation process. However, lengthy study and empirical research led Castells to conclude that collective action by citizen's movements results in wider social transformation only as a rare exception⁴. On a small scale, urban mobilisation can help to reform local political systems, improve public facilities and services, and bring about the democratisation of a city's economic and political life.

Research into urban movements regained popularity in the late 1980s with the outbreak of urban crises in Southern and the Northern cities around the globe. These crises differed in form and strength and were characterized by lack of urban infrastructure, insufficient services to respond to housing, transport, and waste management needs, as well as major financial crisis plaguing local governments. Underlying these symptoms was the process of global economic restructuring which led to the disengagement of the state in a number of sectors⁵. The inability of states to resolve their crises and respond to the demands of their people, and the imposition by some states of structural adjustment policies, have led citizens' groups to take charge of their own needs⁶. This context has contributed to a resurgence of collective initiatives led by urban movements. In a departure from previous trends, demands of citizens' groups are no longer simply for food, housing, transportation, and public and cultural facilities. They focus rather on activities aimed at generating services, creating labour markets, establishing income-generating projects, providing loans to low-income borrowers, and other collective practices related to local development.

Although the concept of local development includes various practices emerging from different economic, politic, cultural and social realities, local development is understood here to include various collective initiatives by local communities on a micro-territory⁷.

Local development can be initiated by politically and/or economically marginalised groups to ensure their own daily needs. Also it can involve the concentration and partnership between different groups of actors⁸. Feelings of belonging to a specific community and cultural identities derived from being rooted to a particularly small geographical area, is considered to be one of the basic elements leading to local development⁹.

An increasing number of researchers are taking an interest in urban collective practices in the contexts of developing countries¹⁰, particularly Latin American¹¹, Asia and, to a lesser extent, Africa¹². By contrast, there few studies of urban movements in Arab countries of the Mashreq (Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and the Occupied Palestinian Territories)¹³. Yet conflicts (wars and occupations in Lebanon and the Arab-Israeli conflict) which have occurred in this region for over fifty years have inspired some citizens' groups to respond by taking charge of their own needs. The study of Palestinian dynamics in East Jerusalem¹⁴ since the city's annexation in 1967 by the Israeli authorities, is particularly interesting. This case of urban struggle is atypical as it is played out on territory annexed and controlled by force. Nonetheless, it demonstrates both various methods of survival in new conditions, resulting from the annexation, as well as a variety practices of resistance (spontaneous or organised as well as collective and individual) against the Israelisation of the territory¹⁵. The Palestinian dynamics in East Jerusalem also demonstrate efforts by Palestinian socio-economic and religious institutions, and professional, charitable, cultural, and community associations to respond to the needs and to protect the identity of East Jerusalem's Palestinian community. In order to be better understood, these particular activities at the local level need to be situated within the larger context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. As the following demonstrates, the Palestinian national struggle has played a major role in shaping the dynamics of resistance in East Jerusalem.

This research aims to shed light on the actions of various Palestinian actors in East Jerusalem in order to demonstrate that the process of destructuring/restructuring the city is not simply a result of Israeli dominance since 1967 but, rather, reflects as dialectical process between Palestinians and Israelis (with Israel clearly has the advantage of the balance of power). More specifically, the term, "destructuring/restructuring", refers to the process of transformation of the various structures (territorial, demographic, economic, politico-ideological (including the cultural) which give the meaning and the shape to the city. This transformation process is an historical process which evolves simultaneously both on short and long terms. The inhabitants of the city are actively involved in this process, by their action on the various structures. The term "destructuring/restructuring" means that the transformation process that has occurred since the creation of Israel in 1948, and more particularly since the annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967, has had deep impacts on the various structures of the city in order to reconstruct it in something else.

In other words, Jerusalem (the territory and its inhabitants), before the creation of the Israeli state, was belonging to the larger socio-cultural environment of the Arab Mashrek region. Jerusalem was a small provincial Arab town inhabited by different religious groups. Its importance in the region was derived mainly from its historical significance and the presence of Holy sites. The city was also the site of administrative offices and the home of large landlords and prominent Arab and Palestinian families. One can say that despite its small size, Jerusalem had a certain influence in the region¹⁶.

The creation of Israel in 1948, led to the division of the city and, later, the forced and unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem under the control of the Israeli authorities. Israeli territorial interventions destructured the endigenous structures which compose the city in order to shape it an "Israeli" city. The primary intention of the Israeli policies (at the national and local levels) is to Israelize the city by creating facts on the ground, to demonstrate that the territory, the inhabitants, and the culture of Jerusalem belongs to Israel¹⁷. Through legal and territorial interventions, Israel incorporated East Jerusalem into the territory which is now recognized as Israel. To obtain demographic majority in East Jerusalem, the Jewish population was encouraged to live in the city. New cultural meanings and symbols have been created and imposed by changing names of streets and parks and through archeological and historical research, the history of the city has been rewritten in order to demonstrate that Jerusalem has been the "enternal capital of Israel"¹⁸. Finally, they have severed Jerusalem from its larger Arab environment in order to put it in an Israeli environment¹⁹.

Although these interventions have had fundamental and major effects on the transformation of the city, although the Israeli actors have the balance of power, I argue that the transformation of East Jerusalem is the result of a dialectical relationship between the Israelis and the Palestinians. In short, the "destructuring-restructuring" process has been determined not simply by the interventions of the Israelis but also by opposing actions of the Palestinians and the Israelis. Hence, in order to properly understand the transformation process of East Jerusalem since 1967, it is important to take into consideration the Palestinian dynamics in East Jerusalem. I will demonstrate that by preserving socio-economic institutions, and professional, community, charitable, cultural and religious associations existing prior to the city's annexation and by creating new institutions, Palestinians both protected themselves against integration policy of the Jerusalem municipality, as well as created certain necessary conditions for local development in East Jerusalem. Paradoxically, however, while the basis of Israeli policy in East Jerusalem is territorial and demographic, it is in this area that Palestinian resistance is weakest and least organised.

This approach challenges the majority of studies on Jerusalem. Although researchers such as Meron Benvenisti, Sarah Kaminker and Gershon Baskin, recognise that the problems in Jerusalem are linked to the national conflict, the majority of Israeli researchers assume that Jerusalem is a unified city under the Israeli state and thus consider the problems between Palestinians and Israelis in the city as "inter-ethnic"²⁰. These assumptions underly problems arising at the local level as the consequence of the inequality of services provided for "Arabs" and Israelis by the Israeli municipality and the government. Nonetheless these researchers advocate, simply, larger budget allocation to Arab affairs and encourage Arab involvement in management and control of neighbourhoods under Israeli sovereignty. Former mayor of Jerusalem, Teddy Kollek (1965-1993) promoted strongly and develop this idea²¹.

Palestinian researchers tend to believe that the transformation of East Jerusalem since 1967 has been and remains determined solely by the action of various Israeli authorities (national and municipal), and certain sectors of the Israeli civil society, mainly settlers²². Although Israeli interventions in East Jerusalem are an important dimension of the transformation process, such a deterministic approach considers Palestinians as either victims or passive observers of Israeli practices in East Jerusalem. However, by their very presence, their survival, and their resistance against the Israelisation of their territory, Palestinians have had an impact on the transformation process of that city. The dialectical relationship in which Israelis and Palestinians have opposed each other through territorial, economic, political, ideological and cultural (including religious) claims must be examined to reach a better understanding of the destructuring/restructuring process in East Jerusalem. Within such a framework, one can better undertake the crucial analysis of the different forms of Palestinian resistance at the local level, and assess their efforts to the preservation of the space and identity of East Jerusalem.

2. The Israelisation and Municipal Integration of East Jerusalem

At the end of the Six Day War in 1967, the Israeli Government forcefully annexed East Jerusalem, which had been under Jordanian control for the previous nineteen years. Israel's main objective was to "reunify" Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty and to establish it as its "interncapital". In order to impose their control over the whole city, the Israeli authorities initiated a process of Israelisation which corresponded with the political and ideological project of creating "Eretz Israel" or "Greater Israel"²³.

The two major components of the Israelisation project are, firstly, the geographic incorporation of East Jerusalem into the Israeli territory created in 1948 and, secondly, the creation of a Jewish demographic majority in East Jerusalem in order to make the re-division of the city impossible²⁴. On the ground, the Israelization project included the annexation of 28 Palestinian villages in the West Bank; the construction of settlements around East Jerusalem which servered the neighbouring villages from the city; the destruction of the Mughrabi quarter in the Old City in order to build the Jewish Quarter; the construction of residential buildings and quarters for Israelis only; and the construction of a road network that served the settlements and spatially unified the western and eastern parts of the city²⁵.

Parallel to this project, former mayor Teddy Kollek adopted a policy which attempted to integrate Palestinian residents into the municipal life of the "unified Jerusalem". In 1967, Israeli authorities issued residency status to Palestinian inhabitants of East Jerusalem, by which they had the right to participate in municipal elections and benefit from services provided by the municipality such as health insurance, social assistance, etc²⁶. This status formally distinguished them from inhabitants of the rest of the Occupied Territories although it did not constitute equality of status between Palestinians and Israelis in Jerusalem.

In spite of the status and the rights provided by the Israeli municipality for Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, their living conditions differ largely from the living conditions of the Jewish Israeli inhabitants of the city. Even the new mayor Ehud Olmert, elected in 1993 and known as a rights member of the Likoud, recognized that living conditions of Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have to be improved²⁷. Due to the confiscation of the land, to the urban zoning which prevent Palestinian to build new houses and due to several difficulties for Palestinian to obtain a building permit, the lack of Housing is considered as one of the most urgent problem.

On several accessions, the mayor offered a few Palestinian leaders an active role in the administration of municipal affairs. In 1968, Kollek obtained the co-operation of the Mukhtars, Palestinian traditional community leaders, whose role was to build relationships between their communities and the municipality²⁸. A certain relationship was established between these leaders and the Israeli municipality, but these links were not sufficient for the mayor to claim a meaningful Palestinian participation at the municipality. In 1980, the municipality created what in Hebrew is called minhalot, or neighbourhood councils²⁹, in an attempt to decentralise the municipal administration and involve local representatives of each of the neighbourhoods in the management of their own local affairs. In so doing, the mayor hoped to involve some Palestinians without agitating the political conflict concerning Jerusalem. Of the thirteen neighbourhood councils in the "Greater Jerusalem" area, however, only three were established in Arab neighbourhoods: in Beit Safafa, Beit Hanina and A-Tur.

These two entities, neighbourhood councils and mukhtars, were not considered fully representative of the Palestinian community by neither the municipality nor Palestinians themselves. Accused by Palestinian leaders and activities of co-operating (some say collaborating) with the municipal authorities, the councils did not receive the full support of the Palestinian national leadership³⁰. For these reasons and also because of their lack of experience in local management and local democracy, the role and power of the neighbourhood councils were strongly limited³¹. Finally, it can be affirmed that the experience of the neighbourhood councils did nothing to improve the mayor's relations with the Palestinian community as he had hoped.

3. Aspects of Palestinian Strategy and Practices of Resistance in East Jerusalem

Four factors can be identified which contextualise Palestinian practices and strategies of resistance in order to protecting the territory and identity of East Jerusalem.

a) Geographical Centrality

Historically, Jerusalem has occupied a central place in Palestinian territoriality (the relationship that unifies a society and its territory)³². Centre of administrative functions during the Ottoman period and site of the main religious institutions of three monotheistic religions, Jerusalem has represented the centre for Palestinians of administrative, religious and political activities, despite its provincial town size and the lack of importance of its economic infrastructure³³.

The occupation since 1967, has severed to situate East Jerusalem at the central point which divides the north of the West Bank from the south. The indefinite closure of Jerusalem imposed by force by the Israeli authorities, in March 1993, prevents Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza from entering East Jerusalem. This measure, has been continually renewed, has serious economic and social impacts on the Palestinian population in general, and also on the community of East Jerusalem. The closure divides the West Bank and Gaza into four main contains, prevents the mobility of the people, and illustrates very clearly the non-viability of an eventual Palestinian state without East Jerusalem³⁴.

b) Political and Symbolic Centrality

Historically, Jerusalem is a religious, spiritual and cultural centre for all Palestinians, Christians and Muslims. Speaches and public statements of Palestinian political and religious leaders, have mentioned the importance of the preservation of the Arab character of the city³⁵. Palestinians attribute a symbolic centrality to East Jerusalem.

East Jerusalem also occupies a fundamental place in Palestinian politics and national aspirations. For Palestinians, East Jerusalem is part of the occupied West Bank. In Algiers, on November 15th 1988, the Palestine National Council (PNC) proclaimed Jerusalem as the capital of the future independent Palestinian state. Although the PNC do no specify the exact territory designated as its capital, it is understood that they mean East Jerusalem.

After the Oslo Agreement, signed in September, 1993, political leaders of the newly established Palestinian Authority encouraged the localisation of new organizations in East Jerusalem in the order to establish the city as the capital of the eventual Palestinian state³⁶. Faisal Husseini, a Jerusalemite leader, was appointed as minister without folio. In fact, Husseini acts at the practical level, as East Jerusalem's mayor or minister. In November, 1993, Faisal Husseini proposed the establishment of the Jerusalem National Council - Palestine. This Council will have a complex organisational structure with several departments and eventually, should act as a center for all Palestinians in Jerusalem³⁷.

c) The Dual Dimension of Resistance: National and Local

Because of the geographical, ideological, political and symbolic centrality of East Jerusalem, the practices and strategies of resistance there acquired a dual - national and local - dimension. The struggle to preserve the land, the struggle against the confiscation of houses and the struggle to preserve Palestinian institutions established in East Jerusalem can be considered "practices of local resistance", but as it was said earlier, constitute also part of the broader national resistance.

Furthermore, it is important to underline that despite their dispersion between what is now called Israel, the Arab countries, the Occupied Territories and, since 1994, the autonomous zones of Gaza and Jericho, Palestinians have developed and defend a national identity which unifies them as one "Palestinian people". However, despite this reference to national identity, it is important to recognise that tare contradictions between different groups: even if there is a general consensus among all Palestinians that East Jerusalem will be the capital of the eventual Palestinian state, the strategies and practices to achieve this common goal, differ from one group to another as will be indicated later³⁸.

Although these practices are described as local resistance having been performed on the territory itself, the actors can come from outside the city, or even from outside the Occupied Territories. In other words, we must also take into consideration the role of certain non-Palestinian actors such as representatives of the Jordanian government or of different churches who have also had influence on the local dynamics in East Jerusalem.

d) Status of the Palestinian Community of East Jerusalem

Although much of the population has refused to participate in formal municipal life, the Palestinian community of East Jerusalem has a status which differentiates it from the rest of the population in the Occupied Territories³⁹. Their resident status in Jerusalem means they are given certain "rights" which Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza do not have. For example, they receive services such as social assistance, national insurance, health and education services offered by the municipality. Furthermore, because they are under Israeli jurisdiction and not under military rule, they can benefit from a certain degree of legal protection and mobility that distinguishes them from other Palestinians.

Despite having access to these "rights" which are not given to inhabitants in the rest of the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians of East Jerusalem are subject to various restrictions and measures which distinguish them, in turn, from Israeli Jewish residents. For example, planning for Arab villages and neighbourhoods is almost non existent. Urban planning and building law are used to control and prevent the expansion of areas for Palestinians. According to Sarah Kaminker, a former municipal councilor and an urban planner, there is an unofficial government quota for the amount of new housing in Palestinian areas⁴⁰. Territorial zoning is used to prevent Palestinians from utilising their land as they wish⁴¹. Kaminker demonstrates that Palestinians are prevented from using 87% of the land of East Jerusalem as they would do, this amount includes expropriated land and zoned land for "public utilities" and "green land"⁴². Finally, Palestinian residents of the Old City are offered financial incentives to sell their houses or their right to residency⁴³ and quite often, are victims of harassment from Israeli settlers⁴⁴.

4. Periodisation of National - Local Practices and Strategies of Resistance

To fully contextualise the significance of the practices and strategies of resistance in East Jerusalem and to see the relationship between these practices of resistance at the local and those at the national level, four time periods are identified.

a) 1967-1974: Preservation of the Arab institutions

The first period, after the Six Day War, was marked by the shock of military occupation and the vacuum left by the departure of the Jordanian government. During this period there were numerous demonstrations, strikes and attacks against the Israeli domination⁴⁵. However, during the first years following the occupation, resistance at the national level reflected mainly reactions to Israeli intervention rather than being part of a comprehensive strategy. The Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories awaited liberation from outside, from either the PLO, which at this time had chosen a guerrilla armed strategy, or from the Arab countries. During this period, the Jordanian government felt directly concerned with the situation in the West Bank⁴⁶. The majority of its civil servants in the Occupied Territories continued working for the Hashemite regime until July 1988, when the Jordanian authorities decided to end this administrative trusteeship. In addition, a fraction of the local elite, who for years had a close relationship with the Jordanian government, sided with Jordanian interests. Obviously, there were Palestinian nationalists activities at this time, but it is only at the end of this period (1967-1974), that a "Palestinization" process will take place in the Occupied Territories. As Ibrahim Dakkak explains, this was the affirmation of the Palestinian identity of the resistance's movement⁴⁷.

At the local level, the Israeli authorities (national and municipal) adopted legislation and visible measures of Israelisation of the territory and integration of East Jerusalem and its inhabitants into Israeli municipal life. This Israelisation was mainly effected through the physical annexation of territory and establishing Jewish population in East Jerusalem. Municipal integration consisted of trying to incorporate Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem into Israeli municipal life through social and economic measures⁴⁸. Parallel to this, the Israeli authorities adopted a systematic policy of dismantling independent Arab organisations. As Meron Benvenisti has stated:

The political guidelines followed by all Israeli bodies dealing with East Jerusalem led them to dismantle any form of independent Arab organization, while refraining from the creation of any special body to deal with East Jerusalem, so as to reinforce the faits accomplice of total and unambiguous⁴⁹.

Facing this double policy of Israelisation and municipal integration of East Jerusalem and their population, Palestinians responded in essentially two ways. First, they adopted a quasi-consensual policy of total non-co-operation with Israeli authorities (national and municipal). Parallel to this approach, they reacted to several Israeli attempts to take control of their institutions or to dismantle them by protesting and resisting in several ways, including legal struggle; public appeal at the United Nations, the international community and through media; and civil disobedience, including demonstrations and strikes.

Briefly, the most well known cases of practices of resistance for the protection of the Arab institutions of East Jerusalem will be reviewed in the following part.

a) the East Jerusalem Municipality,

b) the Islamic Committee,

c) the East Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce,

d) the Electric Jerusalem Corporation

e) the Mokassed Hospital

f) the schools

g) the professionals associations

a) In 1967, the mayor of the East Jerusalem Municipality, Rohi Al-Khattib was offered option of joining the Israeli Municipality of "unified Jerusalem". He and his municipal councilors refused to join the ranks of the Israeli municipality. Conserving his strong ties with the Jordanian government, Al-Khattib tried to negotiate with the Israeli government for a status of independence for the municipality of East Jerusalem. He encountered the strong opposition of the Israeli Mayor of the West Jerusalem municipality⁵⁰. Finally, an Israeli order announced the dissolution of East Jerusalem municipality on 29th June 1967⁵¹. Following this decision, the majority of the employees were integrated into the Israeli municipality.

b) Under the leadership of Sheikh Abdel-Hamid As-Sayeh, who represented the most important administrator of Muslim affairs, including the Islamic Sharia Court and the department of Awqaf, religious leaders resisted the attempt of the Israeli Religious Ministry to take control of Islamic affairs. In a meeting on the 24th of July, 1967, presided by Sheikh Abdel-Hamid As-Sayeh, leaders and dignitaries decided to constitute the Islamic Committee⁵². Thus, religious affairs concerning Jerusalem and the West Bank were protected from the control and interference of the Israeli Minister of Religious Affairs, and these decision-making bodies allowed for the preservation of a certain amount of independence over the administration of Muslim religious affairs in East Jerusalem⁵³.

c) In the same spirit, the East Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce refused the offers of three Israeli merchants' associations who wanted to incorporate the chamber into their organisational structure⁵⁴. Closely associated with the Jorauthorities, this institution opposed the annexation of the city and, in the summer of 1967, encouraged merchants to refuse to pay taxes. With he new rules imposed by the Israelis, the role of the East Jerusalem Chamber of commerce evolved as it assumed administrative tasks for Palestinians who could travel between Jordan and the West Bank. In practical terms, they facilitated relations with the Jordanian government and was considered by the Israeli authorities almost as a "Jordanian consulate"⁵⁵.

d) The case of the Jerusalem Electric Corporation (JEC) represents one successful example of resistance against the Israelis control up to 1986. The JEC is the successor of a British Mandatory Company which sold half of his shares to the Israelis (who, in turn, established the Israeli Electric Company in 1954) and half to Jordanians. In 1957, six municipalities of the West Bank, at that time under Jordanian control, bought the concession along with 2000 shareholders⁵⁶. The JEC became the most important supplier not only for the Jerusalem region but also for the main part of the West Bank including Israeli settlements and Israeli army bases⁵⁷.

In 1967, and several times after, the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem and the Israeli government tried to take control of the (JEC).

As Michael Dumper mentions:

The Israeli government initially tried to take over the JEC's rights to supply Israeli army bases in the West Bank. It also tried to appoint two Israeli officials to the board of trustees as municipality representatives. In addition, the Israeli Custodian of Absentee Property claimed that shares belonging to shareholders no longer resident in Jerusalem should be put in the name of the custodian. For its part, the JEC resisted vigously, and these initial efforts failed. (...) For the JEC, the whole period of the Israeli occupation has been one of the incessant struggle to maintain its administrative and operational independence and to keep the concession intact⁵⁸.

The Israeli municipality claiming it was the "legal" successor of the East Jerusalem municipality, tried to become the new owner and manager of the company. Rohi Al-Khattib, the mayor of the East Jerusalem municipality and the chairperson of the JEC, actively contested the Israeli measures. The case was brought to the Israeli Court which declared illegal the action taken by the Israeli municipality. This affair appeared in the press. Al-Khattib won his case and was able to protect the JEC against the Israeli municipality action but he was deported soon after⁵⁹.

In order to protect their concession against all Israeli attempts to take the control over it, the JEC adopted certain compromises. They finally accepted the presence of two Israeli representatives of the municipality on their board, they fixed their price with those applied by the Israeli Electric Company, and they printed the bills in Hebrew as well as in Arabic⁶⁰. For a time, they could sell their electricity to Palestinian customers in Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank and also to the Israeli who were living in areas serviced by the JEC. The company expanded its sales until the time came when they had to increase their supply of electricity. In 1970, JEC needed to buy four new generates but the Israeli did not give them the permission to receive the loan from the Jordanian government for that purchase (Dumper, p. 91). The Israeli succeeded to force the JEC to buy the electricity from the Israeli company. By 1986, the JEC was purchasing 90 percent of its power from the JEC⁶¹.

Although legally speaking Palestinians succeeded in retaining control of their company, in practical terms through various technical tactics, the Israelis contributed to the corporation's deficit and to its increasing dependence on external support. The power was bought at a high price from the JEC. This led the JEC in needed of financial support from outside mainly from PLO and Jordan⁶².

e) A few days after the Israeli army entered East Jerusalem, the Israeli authorities wanted to transform the Maqassed Hospital into the police ministry. Ibrahim Dakkak, an engineer who was the secretary of the managing committee of the hospital at that time, was in charge of the negotiations with the Israeli Knesset members. The case was raised in the international press and at the United Nations. Palestinians succeeded in this case in protecting Maqassed Hospital which is now the most important hospital for the entire occupied territories⁶³. Nonetheless, the Israelis managed to transform another hospital in East Jerusalem into their police minister⁶⁴.

f) Finally, a strong protest movement took place in Palestinian schools of East Jerusalem against the imposition of an Arab-Israeli curriculum. A long battle began in the summer of 1967 and was to continue for many years. For students, having study to the Arab-Israeli curriculum meant that they would not be allow to continue their studies in Universities in Arab countries. The opposition of the pupils and teachers forced the Israeli government to compromise. They imposed the Arab-Israeli curriculum only in governmental schools but not in the UNRWA schools or private educational establishments. This decision led parents to register their children in private schools. The number of pupils registered in public schools declined quickly. For example, 1.317 pupils attended government high schools in 1967; by 1968, the number declined by 50 percent, and continued to drop to, in 1970 a total of 116 65. After several modifications in the schools program, the Israeli government allowed in 1976 the integration of the Jordanian curriculum with the Israeli-Arab one66. For their part, private Christian and Muslim schools remained free to choose their own curriculum 67 .

g) To achieve integration, Israeli authorities wanted to force the various professional associations (lawyers, dentists, engineers, etc.) to adhere to the Israeli system which required Palestinians to obtain an Israeli permit to practice⁶⁸. These associations refused to register themselves with the Israeli authorities. The latter were obligated to allow the associations to operate under their existing Jordanian government registration. A similar situation was encountered by the merchants of East Jerusalem.

Parallel to these attempts to keep existing socio-economic and religious institutions out of the Israeli control, new organisations were established to deal with the prevailing situation. On 24th July 1967, a meeting called by Sheikh Abdel Hamid As-Sayeh created a semi-clandestine political organisation⁶⁹. Chaired by the Sheikh himself and composed of different Palestinian and Jordanian dignitaries, the National Guidance Committee (N.G.C.) denounced the Israeli annexation of the city and launched a public appeal to preserve its Arab character. Their actions were mainly legal and comprised of petitions, demonstrations and appeals to the international community, The N.G.C. led the resistance not only in Jerusalem but in the main cities of the West Bank where they had branches. For the first two or three years of the annexation, the National Guidance Committee of Jerusalem played an active role with older organisations such as the Arab Women's Union⁷⁰. However, the deportation of its leader As-Sayeh in September 1967 and the further expulsion of the subsequent chairman Rohi Al-Khattib in 1968, seriously weakened the organisation⁷¹.

Collective actions, during the first years of the annexation of the city, were not organised within the framework of a specific strategy of local resistance. Indeed, these different examples of resistance indicate that Palestinian practices represented more a reaction to Israeli intervention rather than forming part of a comprehensive strategy of active resistance. Each attempt by the Israeli authorities to integrate the different professional and social sectors or else to dismantle them entirely, was met with resistance manifested through strikes and protests organised mainly sector by sector. As such Muslim and Christian, educational and professional associations which were able to (completely or) partially protect ho, fully integrated. This was the case of the 370 employees of the former Arab municipality of Jerusalem, came to be employed by the Israeli municipality⁷². Although fully integrated, as mentioned, these employees attempted to minimize the personal and political compromise entailed by their new circumstances. As Meron Benvenisti notes:

The Arab employees reported for work after annexation remembering the words of their Mayor, Rauhi Al-Khattib, that they were not betraying their people by doing so, but, on the contrary, were helping to safeguard the Arab character of their city. However, doing one's duty is not the same as whole-hearted devotion to one's work. Most of the employees considered their work merely as a duty⁷³.

It is important to note that these organisations and institutions were led mainly by members of the Jerusalem local elite with financial support from outside. This was provided primarily by the Jordanian government which covered the expenses for schools, the Islamic council and lawyers.

The Jordanian after the June 1967 defeat, started to heal their wounds and resume their role across the open bridges. They worked towards the re-establishment of their control over the Awqaf departments, the Shari'a courts, Al-Aqsa Restoration Committee, the private (Jordanian) school system, municipalities and charitable societies⁷⁴.

This local Palestinian elite was comprised of prominent figures such as Anwar Nusseibeh and Anwar Al-Khattib, the two former Governors of Jerusalem, Daoud El-Husseini, Abdel Mohsen Abu Mezar, Aref Al Aref, and others members of the Palestinian bourgeoisie. Professional associations represented the most highly educated sector of the population of Jerusalem. The involvement of their members probably contributed to the choice of legal, peaceful, and lobbying methods of resistance rather than civil disobedience or other offensive methods. It is logical to assume that the well established groups protected their own interests. They did not pay enough attention to struggles concerning land and housing and, as mentioned above, in the period following the annexation of East Jerusalem, Israelis were able to expropriate a large part of the territory including the Old City⁷⁵. Indeed, during this period, Israeli authorities began their policy of Israelisation of the territory. The Maghrebi quarter was demolished in order to build the plaza in front of the Wailing Wall and resulted with the demolition's of 135 houses and the eviction of 650 persons.

The Christian families who owned the land which was a no man's land between 1948 and 1967, vigorously protested in the law courts and this battle was brought to the public's attention. In the first instance, they won their case and were allowed to regain the properties but afterwards the land was zoned into a green zone. This planning measure means that they can not build on their land which is under the control of the local government. Thus, these first battle concerning the protection of their land and properties were not very successful. Within three years of the annexation, 30% of East Jerusalem was expropriated.

In this initial period, practices of resistance were mainly reaction to Israeli intervention and were organised along sectorial lines. Although practices of resistance were not organised with a unified or common strategy between various sectors of society, they contributed to the preservation of the main socio-economic and cultural Arab institutions which later became Palestinian institutions. The Islamic Committee, the schools, the Jerusalem Electric Corporation and the Maqassed Hospital have continued their activities despite systematic and continual Israeli attempts to control them. In fact, they have become symbols of Palestinian and Arab identity in East Jerusalem.

b) 1975-1987 : Sumudisme versus Popular resistance

In the early 1970s, a number of important events shocked the Arab world. For example, the massacre in Jordan known as Black September in 1970, in which several thousands Palestinians were killed in Amman⁷⁶, the Arab-Israeli war in 1973 and the Arab Summit in Rabat in 1974 where the PLO was recognised as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and, finally the signature of the Camp David agreements in 1978. These events had important reprecussions for the dynamics of resistance in the Occupied Territories where there was a shift of the Arab resistance to being more of a Palestinian-centred struggle⁷⁷.

The collapse of the Arab armies in 1967 and the fall of the credibility of Arab regimes with their versions and practice of p an Arabism, left no doubt that the Palestinians were on the threshold of a re-emerging leadership and entity. It was the historical task of the new leadership to form, out of the Palestinian mosaic, created after 1948, a homogeneous free entity, able to withstand the posing historical challenge in a process of socio-political metabolism⁷⁸.

In the 70's, the Palestinian leadership inside and outside the Occupied Territories began to create a certain distance from the Arab leaders outside (mainly Jordan) and consolidate its position as sole representative of the Palestinian people. Parallel to development, inside the Occupied Territories two attempts were made to create a common political front composed of various political parties which tried to work along the same lines as the PLO: the Palestinian Patriotic Front (P.P.F.) from 1973-1976 and the established National Guidance Committee II in 1978-1981⁷⁹. These new initiatives influenced political orientations within the P.L.O. and contributed to its adoption of the two state solution. As Ibrahim Dakkak mentions:

The P.P.F., influenced by the results of the October war in 1973 and the radical change in the balance of power immediately after the war, began to develop its theory on Palestinian rights, and at a later stage its position with respect to the establishment of a Palestinian State within the 1967 borders⁸⁰.

Palestinian leaders not only realised the importance of reacting to protect the Palestinian population against the Israeli intervention but also saw the necessity of creating an offensive national approach in order to preserve the inhabitants of the Occupied Territories. Two main strategies emerged in this period. Sumud (steadfastness) was developed at the beginning of the 70's and can be defined as a strategy of passive resistance which focused on providing help and support to enable the Palestinian population in the West Bank Gaza to remain on their land. As Edward Said wrote:

Implicit to this notion, there was the belief that the Palestinians will assume their national future-the natural behavior expected (by the Israelis) was the exodus and leaving⁸¹.

Elaborated as a survival strategy and preservation of Palestinian culture and identity, sumud evolved as a form of affirmation of the traditional virtue of rural society - attachment to the land, fecundity for women, and self-sufficiency⁸².

While the sumud was affirmed as the main strategy of the elite, the PLO and its supporters in the Occupied Territories, and was financially supported by the Arab states, young militants and activists within the Palestinian student movement, workers from unions and activists from the leftist parties were developing a strategy of active resistance. This was a direct challenge to the passive and hierarchical organisation of the sumud and its practices of clientelism. These young leaders started to build an alternative infrastructure in health, education, agriculture within a framework of popular resistance of the masses. Many community groups and grassroots committees were established in East Jerusalem for both tactical and political reasons. Locating themselves in East Jerusalem placed them under the Israeli juridical system which could provide them a certain protection not availed by the military regulations that prevailed on the rest of the Occupied Territories. Although these organisations defined themselves as national organisations and provided services to the population in all the Occupied Territories, they contributed first and , to strengthening the role of East Jerusalem as the centre of activity for the West Bank and Gaza.

The beginning of the 80's, witnessed the continuation in the building of Israeli settlements. The establishment of settlements in the eastern periphery of Jerusalem and the general construction of housing for Jewish Israelis, increased the proportion of Israeli Jewish inhabitants in East Jerusalem while the Palestinian population faced ongoing confiscation of land and severe housing shortages.

Palestinian leaders and representatives of some churches realised the impact of the demographic battle being waged by the Israeli authorities in East Jerusalem.

One of the concerns of certain Palestinians was how to maintain the Palestinian community in the Occupied Territories and particularly in East Jerusalem. Some concrete initiatives were taken by Arab institutions and churches in order to help the population to remain inside the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem⁸³.

Following the Arab Summit in Baghdad in 1979, of which Arab countries decided to support Palestinian resistance in the Occupied Territories, the joint Jordanian-Palestinian Committee was established to channel financial support for the Palestinian population living in the Occupied Territories precisely to help hem to stay on their land. The committee's objectives focused on the :

... preservation of the national presence of Arab Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and intensifying their attachment to the Palestinian land and their national identity with all its dimensions pertaining to culture, civilisation, politics and economics⁸⁴.

The priority of the Jordanian-Palestinian Committee was " ... the protection the Arab character of the Holy City in all the religious and historical sites"⁸⁵.

Between 1976 and 1986, this committee financed projects which cost a total of 158 million Jordanian dinars, of which East Jerusalem received 38%. Funds were spent mainly on housing (16%), the waqf, Islamic affairs and the religious sites. Concerning the housing sector, the committee issued loans of up to $25,000 to residents of Jerusalem who already owned land and who wanted to build houses on it. To obtain this loan, however, the home owner, had to obtain a permit from the Israeli municipality.

Similarly, some Christian organisations financed housing projects inside the borders of Jerusalem to reduce emigration of Christian inhabitants of the city. In 1982, the Holy Land Arab Housing Society, a Roman Catholic organisation, purchased 5 dunams of land in Beit Hanina to build 24 apartments⁸⁶. However, they had still not received approval from the Israeli Ministry of the Interior in 1987. The Greek Orthodox Community had a similar project for several dozen housing units in Beit Hanina and met with similar problems in getting the necessary authorization from the Israeli authorities. They received the approval of the District Planning Commission in January 1986 but they did not receive approval from the Ministry of the Interior, which was afraid to create a precedent⁸⁷. Approval was finally granted on the conditions that the development of North Jerusalem's Arab sector would be reviewed by the Interior and Housing Ministries. Nevertheless, the project was ultimately halted because of corruption problems.

In 1985, there were two important battles, with the Israeli authorities. One over a 500 dunam piece of land in Sur Baher (which was part of the 2,200 dunams confiscated in 1970 for the construction of East Talpiot) and the other over the Austrian Hospice in the Old City. In both cases, people organised popular protest movements. In the case of the residents of Sur Baher, they reached a compromise. The Jewish National Fund was not allowed to use the arable land for the green belt it wanted to create and Palestinians were able to continue cultivating the good land⁸⁸. In the case of the Austrian hospice, 57 Palestinian organisations from all over the Occupied Territories signed a petition asking for the preservation of the hospital's status; nonetheless the hospice was transformed into a day care clinic⁸⁹.

During 1975-1987, the establishment of new organisations, both cultural, developmental and socio-economic, consolidated the role of East Jerusalem as the centre of Palestinian activities by providing services and organizing activities. Although these organisations were operating at the national level, they have had an important impact on the local dynamics of the city and its inhabitants. Palestinian newspapers, theatres and musicians, in favouring East Jerusalem for their activities, also helped to preserve the Palestinian identity of the population. As example, the Al-Hakawati (National) theatre, established in 1984, considers itself a vehicle for the preservation of the cultural identity of the Palestinian population. In the absence of national and municipal authorities which could represent their interests, those organisations played a pivotal role in maintaining the presence of the population and their Palestinian identity.

However although the Palestinians realised the importance of preserving the community on its land and inside the municipal borders, the practices of resistance used were not sufficient to stop the continuing Israelisation process. At best, resistance practices were able to maintain the status quo, as in the case of the villagers of Sur Baher.

c) 1987-1991 : Intifada

The Intifada initiated in the refugee camps in Gaza, in December 1987, emerged as a result of the terrible conditions created by the military occupation. But this huge movement of civil resistance was also the result of the evolution of organisation and mobilisation by grassroots committees, popular organisations and community associations which were the main leaders of the strategy of the popular resistance.

To the surprise of the Israeli authorities (both national and municipal) who were convinced that the ":unification" process of the city was succeeding, the intifada spread rapidly to East Jerusalem.

A few months before the intifada, public figures, such as Hanna Siniora, editor of the newspaper Al Fajr, raised he idea of forming a Palestinian list in order to participate in Jerusalem's municipal elections⁹⁰. This idea was part of the prevailing analysis in the Occupied Territories which assumed the irreversibility of Israel's control over the territories and a long term structural dependency of the Palestinian economy. For some intellectuals and activists, such as Sari Nusseibeh, (a well known teacher at Birzeit University), the intense nationalism was not a phenomenon that was irreconcilable with increased assimilation into the Israeli reality but, rather, an appropriate consequence of that integration, "a direct response, at the mental level, to the increased immersion in the system on the behavioural level"⁹¹.

Salim Tamari explains it thus:

Given the nature of Israel's control over the territories, and the dispersal of the Palestinian movement after the Lebanese war, it was more likely that the Palestinians would have to accomodate themselves to Israeli hegemony rather than the other way round⁹².

At the level of Jerusalem, Hanna Siniora found that as one third of the population, the Palestinians could win at least seven seats on the municipal council. He consequently affirmed publicly that they would run for election. However, his proposition was strongly rejected by almost all Palestinian political parties and the majority of the population in all sectors. Shortly after this rejection, the onset intifada, which took everyone by surprise including the Palestinians themselves, rendered unthinkable the question of Palestinian participation in municipal affairs.

The intifada with all its manifestations initiated in the refugees camps in Gaza in December 1987, reached East Jerusalem very quickly. The Israeli institutions or symbols in the eastern part of the city such as banks, the transport system (the Israeli Egged Bus company) and the house of Ariel Sharon (Israeli Minister of Industry and Trade) who had just moved into a house in the Muslim quarter in the Old Ci, were the first targets of the stones and sometimes the molotov cocktails of the shabab⁹³. The main roads linking the settlements of East Jerusalem to the western centre of Jerusalem were often blocked with stones and burning tires. Confrontations between young people and the police in Shuafat, Beit Safafa, Silwan, Issawiyeh and other Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem obliged the Israeli authorities to strengthen security in Jerusalem. For the first time in the history of the city, the police authorities asked for special measures, normally adopted by the army, in imposing curfews in some Arab neighbourhoods. On the 22nd of January 1988, a curfew was imposed on the A-Tur neighbourhood on the Mount of Olives and IDF soldiers and border police were brought into East Jerusalem in to help the police forces cope with the new events⁹⁴.

Despite many attempts by the Israeli authorities to break them, commercial strikes with strong involvement of East Jerusalem merchants and students strikes involving both private and public schools, paralysed a part of the cit. On the 13th of February, the 31 schools of East Jerusalem run by the municipality that provided education to 16,000 Palestinian students were closed for an indefinite period. The 25,000 students from private schools wee already out of school⁹⁵.

On the 24th of January, the police authorities tried to force the opening of 25 shops near the Damascus Gate after four week of commercial strikes. Police arrested 14 merchants who were put in prison for a short period and then put on trial before the Municipal Court of Jerusalem.

However, despite their use of force, Israeli authorities were not able to end strikes, which continued for at least two years and have still not completely stopped. Resistance in East Jerusalem, which was normally quieter than the rest of the Occupied Territories showed the strong links between the Palestinian community of East Jerusalem and the rest of the population in the West Bank and Gaza. The civil resistance movement in the city clearly demonstrated the failure to unify Jerusalem and effectively imposed a psychological barrier between the eastern and western parts of the city. As Meron Benvenisti said in an interview for the Jerusalem Post:

The boundaries that include the refugee camp Shuafat in the municipal border and exclude the refugee camp of Kalandia or the village of Abu Dis are artificial. The myth of Jerusalem as a city different from the West Bank is destroyed. For the Israelis, it is like a spait in the eye. We stole from them thjis illusion⁹⁶.

In addition to the gravity of the situation during the first years of the intifada, the construction of Israeli settlements continued. In October 1991, settlers from El Ad, a Jewish organisation which claimed to own 15% of the houses in Silwan and 50% of the land, occupied by force five houses in the village of Silwan⁹⁷. They received an order to leave but returned later in December. The population of Silwan immediately demonstrated strong solidarity with the Palestinian tenants of the apartments. The Mukhtar called a meeting in his house at which local Palestinians established a solidarity group called the Silwan Committee for the Defence of the Land⁹⁸. The committee organised a press conference, launched public appeals and raised funds in order to pay the expenses of the tenants' defence. The Land and Water Establishment Centre paid for the services of lawyer and many people came and stayed day and night with the tenants whose homes were threatened. The national leader Faisal Husseini and other national figures went to demonstrate their solidarity with the tenants and activists almost every night during December 1991. The actions in Silwan were considered a prime example of civil resistance against settlers even though Palestinians did not recover all of the occupied apartments.

The intifada signified a complete change of the situation prevailing in Jerusalem for the twenty years following the annexation. As many observers of the municipal scene noted, the intifada imposed a clear demarcation between the two parts of the city. Even the mayor of the so-called "unified city" was obliged t admit the failure of unification. In line with his previous attempts, he continued to promote more than ever the idea of sharing responsibilities of the local affairs between Arab and Israeli neighborhoods - with each remaining under the Israeli sovereignty. Kollek proposed a type of decentralisation which would give more responsibility to the local leaders of Jerusalem neighbourhoods. On the Palestinian side, the fact that East Jerusalem was part of the Occupied Territories as whole, became indisputable after the intifada, adding weight to the claim which had previously been seen as little more than political rhetoric. On 15 November 1988, the Palestine National Council (PNC) proclaimed the independence of the Palestinian State on the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital⁹⁹.

In leaflet no. 20, the Unified National Leadership of the Uprising (intifada) emphasised the importance of East Jerusalem as the centre of Palestinian activities and as the capital of the future Palestinian state. The leaflet warned that "... the systematic attempts to Judaise Jerusalem ... have reached a crucial point, placing the future of Jerusalem in question". It warned landlords not to leave property in Jerusalem vacant¹⁰⁰.

Neighbourhood committees which were taking care of daily life in the absence of national and municipal authorities, were established in the Arab neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem as well as in the rest of the Occupied Territories. Leaders from Palestinian bodies such as human rights organisations, research centres and other community organisations started to focus parts of their work on the situation in East Jerusalem. These organizations responded to the lack of information concerning certain issues in East Jerusalem such as house demolitions, land confiscations, the confiscation of houses by settlers etc. and began to compile and publish data¹⁰¹. They then tried to attract the attention of the media and the international community but again, did not elaborate a common or a specific strategy concerning the city. For the leaders of the national movement, the only way to solve these above mentioned issues is to address them at a political and diplomatic level. Awaiting a final settlement that was to be achieved in the coming period, they emphasised international lobbying and neglected to develop a concrete strategy on the ground which will answer the practical needs of the community living in East Jerusalem.

d) 1991 - 1994 : Negotiations

In 1991, following the Gulf War, Palestinians were politically isolated from the rest of the world, from the Arab world and economically strangled. The closure of the Occupied Territories prevented Palestinians workers from going to work inside Israel and the Gulf countries cut their subsidies which had supported Palestinians institutions in the Occupied Territories for many years. The explusion of Palestinian workers from Kuwait also drastically reduced the income of many families living in the Occupied Territories. The intifada had also entered a crisis that lay along factional lines which, in turn, weakened the co-ordination of civil resistance.

This situation of weakness and isolation led Palestinian leaders to participate in the pace process initiated by the American government and inaugurated in Madrid in October 1991. The diplomatic channel appeared to be the only solution in the eyes of Fatah, the dominant political faction of the PLO. Although they had some worries about this option, the leaders of The Democratic Union, Fida and the Palestinian People's party (PPP), decided to join the delegation of the negotiations. After various imbroglios with the Israelis and within Palestinian ranks, the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations gave birth to the Oslo Declaration of Principles signed on September 13th 1993. The DOP granted limited autonomy in Gaza and Jericho for an interim period and stipulated autonomy in Gaza and Jericho for an interim period and stiuthat the status of Jerusalem was not to be discussed before the third of the five-year interim period.

As negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians within the context of the peace process continue, the Palestinians are attempting to establish an infrastructure for their future government. For them, there is no doubt, East Jerusalem must be the capital of their future state. In order for this to occur, they have tried to establish new national institutions in East Jerusalem, which were to become either ministries in East Jerusalem or para-governmental institutions. Under the leadership of Faisal Husseini, the Jerusalem National Council of Palestine was proposed in November 1993, in order to play a specific role during the interim period and also to uphold the status of Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state¹⁰². One of the aims of this new strategy is to establish differnt local bodies in East Jerusalem along the same lines as similar Israeli bodies in the city. For example, the Palestinian National Housing Council, the Palestinian National Health Council, the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction (PECDAR), Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics and the Palestinian Energy Research Center have offices in the city, although they are facing several difficulties to operate there. In last December, the Knesset adopted a law, known as the "Jerusalem bill" which prevents these organisations to be settled in East Jerusalem.

More than ever, the Palestinian leadership realised the necessity and the urgency of preserving East Jerusalem against the process of Israelisation the pace of which seems to have increased. However, Palestinian leaders have again adopted a passive and diplomatic strategy of resistance rather than developing a comprehensive strategy which will take into account the political principles and the practical needs of the inhabitants. For example, longest closure ever imposed on Jerusalem for Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which has been in effect since March 1993, was contested primarily at the international level rather than on the ground. Palestinian orgnisations and NGOs investigated and complied data concerning the confiscation of land and houses, the demolition of houses, and the construction of settlements in East Jerusalem. Conferences and workshops on Jerusalem are held here and there. There are many discussions and exchanges about the future of Jerusalem among Palestinians and between Palestinians and Israelis. Different proposals are continually put forward. But, despite this seemingly frantic activity, the reality on the ground indicates that the Palestinians are losing the battle for Jerusalem. According to Sarah Kaminker, an urban planner and municipal councillor, the Palestinian community cannot utilise 70% of the territory of East Jerusalem as they wish. Using a variety of measures from zoning to expropriation, the Israeli authorities have taken control of a large part of the territory and, according to Israeli data from 1993, Jews have become the majority of the total population in East Jerusalem.

CONCLUSION

By analysing practices of resistance in East Jerusalem from 1967 to 1994, it becomes clear that Palestinians have developed two main strategies in order to preserve the territory and identity of East Jerusalem and its population. The first strategy was based on the principle of non-co-operation with the municipality and the Israeli national authorities. Although Palestinian of East Jerusalem have received services from the municipality and have used the urban infrasturcutre (running water, sewage, bus system, roads), they do not recognise the municipality, neither politically nor as representative of their interests. Except for the Mukhtars, who continued to play part of their traditional community role, and the neighbourhood councils in Beit Hanina, A-Tur and Beit Safafa which were established in the 1980's, Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have tried to minimise their relations with the Israeli municipality.

Despite all his attempts, long-time Mayor Teddy Kollek never found Palestinian representatives who could provide him with the opportunity to present evidence of Palestinian community participating in the formal affairs of the municipality. Only a small minority of Palestinians has voted in municipal elections; the proposal for developing a Palestinian muncipal party (Hanna Siniora, 1987) was rejected by the majority of the people. Thus, the Palestinian community of East Jerusalem did not cooperate politically with either the Israeli municipality or the Israeli government.

However, in their daily life, Palestinian inhabitants of East Jerusalem tried to adapt themselves to the new conditions caused by the annexation of the territory, in order to survive. Although politically they opposed with Israeli control, they had to live within the Israeli municipal system. For example, a lot of schools are operated by the Israeli municipality and thus the teachers receive their salary from it. A certain number of workers in education orin the health sector are in the Histadrut Union (the Israeli workers union in the public sector).

Parallel to this strategy of non-co-operation, Palestinians have tried to protect those socio-economic, religious and cultural institutions in existence prior to 1967, such as the Chamber of Commerce, Maqassed Hospital, and the Jerusalem Electric Corporation as well as professional and charitable associations. The continous presence of these institutions and the establishment of new ones such as the Islamic Committee and grassroots and cultural organisations, have helped to protect Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem from the municipal integrationist policy adopted by mayor Teddy Kollek. Indeed, the majority of these new organisations consider themselves national and by giving services to the Palestinian population from all over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, they institutions have contributed to the strengthening of the status of East Jerusalem as the Palestinian centre for all the Occupied Territories.

However, Palestinians have not organised a unified and intersectoral strategy of resistance concerning East Jerusalem, nor have they organised a specific strategy at the local level. Political bodies such as the National Guidance Committee (1967-1969), the Palestinian National Front (1973-1976), and the second National Guidance Committee (1978-1981), organised resistance at the national level. They consciously refused to differentiate resistance concerning East Jerusalem from the struggle of the rest of the population in the West Bank and Gaza. Over the last 27 years, not one organisation or umbrella organisation has developed a specific strategy of resistance concerning East Jerusalem, while the Israelis have adopted a specific strategy concerning what they call the "reunification of Jerusalem".

Practices and strategies of resistance were organised mainly sector by sector (commerce, education, religious affairs, professional, health etc.). When practices of resistance were intersectorla, as in the case of multiple general strikes, the basis of resistance was nationalist, for example, strikes on the anniversary of Balfour declaration or the Six Day War, the visit of the US Secretary of State or the UN representative, etc. That was also the case of the Intifada.

As we saw earlier, the Israelisation process interferes mainly with the territorial and the demographic structures of the city. It is similar to the settlement policy applied in the West Bank and Gaza Strip but East Jerusalem is specific. Indeed, for the Israeli authorities and society, the status of annexed territory of East Jerusalem leads them to consider Jerusalem as a political priority. I would suggest that the predominance of the national dimension of Palestinian resistance has contributed to the lack of attention to resistance at the local level. Many Palestinian leaders believe that to develop a specific strategy of resistance concerning East Jerusalem could divide the population from the rest of the West Bank and weaken national .

This would appear to be a mistaken line of reasoning, because one is dealing precisely with a question of strategy (in the quasi-military sense of the word) within the overall context of a goal, which is winning the war for national liberation and self-determination. East Jerusalem constitutes a particular, separate front and should be treated as such. It is not a different case, of that there can be no doubt - it is a part of the Palestinian whole. But this does not justify the overall historical trend which consists in treating East Jerusalem as an undifferentiated part of the overall national struggle. It is of course a part of that struggle, but because of its centrality, because of the Israeli determination to Israelise it completely, because of the weakness of the Palestinians and he tenuousness of their hold over the eastern part of the city, it needed special treatement all along.

As noted earlier, the presence of institutions dealing with development, health, education, women and human rights etc. and cultural activities such as music, theatre and the media, have contributed to developing and preserving the feeling that East Jerusalem belongs to the Palestinian people, in national terms. In the absence of a state and municipal authorities which could represent its interests, the Palestinian population protected and established these economic and religious institutions, professional, cultural and community associations, charitable organisations, NGOs and unions in East Jerusalem. This has created, as our main hypothesis suggests, a certain number of the necessary conditions for local development in East Jerusalem.

As previously defined, local development can refer to collective practices initiated by grassroots and neighbourhood associations and community organisations who take charge of supplying the economic, social and cultural development needs of their local community. These initiatives can be small scale projects catering to a specific need or involve partnerships and concertation between various partners in order to articulate and implement local social and economic development.

In the case of East Jerusalem, this analysis shows that the presence and action of institutions and organisations have contributed, to a certain extent, to the welfare of the Palestinian community and to the preservation of its Arab and Palestinian identity. It can be said that they have answered the needs of the Palestinian community living in East Jerusalem, albeit within certain limits and in certain spheres. In 1995, despite the fact they are living under occupation, the Palestinians have established different bodies and institutions which have the potential to take full control of local and municipal affairs in East Jerusalem. However, the mere presence of these organisations is not enough to affirm that Palestinian local development is actually being achieved. The most important condition for local development is political sovereignty and control over the territory and this is probably the main obstacle for the Palestinians.

As is known, the question of Jerusalem will be negotiated "as soon as possible, but not later than the begginning of the third year of the interim period, between the government of Israel and the Palestinian people's representatives." At this moment, no one can predict the result of these diplomatic negotiations.

There are several proposals concerning the status of Jerusalem. For example, Jerusalem as an open city representing two capitals with two municipalities or as one capital for two states with a shared municipality. However, concerning the territory, although approximatively 40% of the land has already been confiscated, Palestinians still have the opportunity to prevent the loss of more. Although their past experience demonstrates that territorial struggle was their weakest point, there are still possibilities of resisting. But resistance necessitates informations sharing and developing a common and unified strategy which will involve not only the politicans and bureaucrats of the Palestinian institutions, but also the local community and residents confronted by the daily problems in East Jerusalem.

Visible measures and mass actions have to be taken and organised parallel to political initiatives. Palestinians have to define an offensive strategy whereby they pre-empt further Israeli action. Eventually, they have also the discuss and debate the future of East Jerusalem in developmental terms. To be articulated coherently and explicitly, local development necessitates a common strategy and solidarity, based on an understanding of self defined community needs. Local development implies decentralised practices and demcratisation of the local affairs between the various groups of actors involved in the process. Through neighbourhood associations and grassroot organisations, the community can then become of of the pillars of such a project.