December 9th, 1917 - General Edmond Allenby marches into Jerusalem
We promised to bring more posts on concerning the centenary of the First World War, and here's the first one – How the British army conquered Jerusalem on December 1917.
The Palestine theater of war (there was another battle zone in the Middle East – the war in Mesopotamia/Iraq in which the British suffered one of their worst defeats –the siege of Kut el-Amara) was secondary to the European war (especially the western front, but also the eastern front) but on the other hand, it was a more dynamic and fast going war, unlike the static and indecisive war on the western front.
Turkey entered the war on November 2nd 1914, after concluding a secret pact with Germany. The war in the Middle East started at the end of that month, when a British force, sent from India, landed in Basra and conquered it. On February 1915, a Turkish force (under German command) attacked the British-controlled Suez Canal - and was repulsed. The British decided that the best way to defend the Strategic Canal was by capturing the Sinai Peninsula and advancing on Palestine. On January 1917 the British took Rafah and on March and April tried to capture Gaza (the gate to the land of Israel since ancient times) and failed.
After the failure in the second battle of Gaza (in which the British used Gas and Tanks), the British commander, General Archibald Murray was recalled and replaced with General Edmond Allenby. Allenby, a veteran cavalry officer, had commanded the 3rd British army on the western front and commanded the Arras offensive in France in the spring of 1917. Although the initial stages of the attack were successful (relatively for the western front) the battle soon deteriorated into regular static trench warfare. Allenby was removed from his command and was returned to Britain.
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| (Wikipedia) |
Allenby received the command of the Palestine front in the summer of 1917 and started preparing for another attack on Gaza, but this time in another fashion: He made the Turks and the Germans believe that he was about to attack Gaza again but instead attacked Beersheba. Australian, New Zealand and British cavalry (The Palestine front saw the deployment of large cavalry forces – including French and Indian cavalry units – something that the western front's trench system and fire power did not allow) and conquered it after a fierce fight. From there Allenby's forces moved north from Gaza to outflank the Turks. The Turks retreated towards the Yarkon River and Jerusalem. The British moved towards Jerusalem in the end of November 1917 in three main routes – north of Jerusalem (today's Route 443 – the ancient road to Jerusalem), the main highway to Jerusalem (today's Route number 1) and from the south – via Hebron and Bethlehem.
At the beginning of December 1917 the Turks began to retreat from Jerusalem (the Germans managed to dissuade the Turks from their plan ofexpelling the Jews of Jerusalem, as they did to the Jews of Tel Aviv and the neighboring towns) and on December 9th the mayor of Jerusalem, Hussein el Husseini, went out with a group of dignitaries to present to the British the surrender of Jerusalem. With them came an American photographer, a member of the American colony in Jerusalem, named Lewis Larson. According to SimonSebag-Montefiore in his book "Jerusalem – the biography", the delegation met two British soldiers, cooks of a commander in the60th Division (a 'Cockney' unit from east London) who were in a mission to find eggs for their commander's breakfast…The cooks refused to accept the city's surrender – "We don’t want the surrender of the 'oly city, we want heggs for ur hofficer" (I hope I got the cockney accent right…). The delegation moved on, and soon encountered two more British soldiers (from the same division), sergeants Sedgwick and Hurcomb, who were scouts for their unit. They too refused to accept the surrender of the Jerusalem but were willing to be photographed with the delegation and accepted cigarettes from them… (At the place where this meeting happened, a monument was erected in memorial to the surrender of Jerusalem to the British army and the soldiers of the 60th division that fell in the First World War. The monument can be found today behind Jerusalem's central bus station, in the Romema neighborhood).
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| (Wikipedia) |
After being rejected by a British artillery officer, the delegation met Brigadier Watson, commander of the 180th brigade, who accepted the surrender of Jerusalem. After the short ceremony, Watson informed his commander, General Shea (commander of the 60th division) the he had accepted the surrender of Jerusalem. Shea canceled the surrender to Watson and demanded that el Husseini surrender to him. Husseini again came out of Jerusalem and surrendered to Shea. Shea entered Jerusalem and declared martial law. He then informed Allenby that he accepted the surrender of Jerusalem. Allenby cancelled the two former surrenders and demanded that the city surrender to him and to him only. At this point el Husseini became ill and the third surrender took place without him. (He later succumbed to pneumonia – no doubt from too frequent exposure to the cold Jerusalem December mornings).
Allenby rode his horse to the Jaffa gate but entered the city on foot – as a sign of respect to the holiness of the city (and in striking contrast to Kaiser Wilhelm IIpompous entry to Jerusalem 20 years earlier) with his staff marching after him. He walked to the entrance of Jerusalem citadel (known as Tower of David), met the heads of the different communities in the city and declared martial law in the city.
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| (Wikipedia) |
The war in Palestine continued until September 1918. After a winter and a spring of static warfare, Allenby attacked the Turkish lines with his typical deception, feinting an attack on Trans Jordan while sending a large cavalry force covered by large numbers of airplanes towards Nazareth and Haifa. It was a textbook operation, still regarded to this day. The British arrived in Damascus on October 1stand on October 31st Turkey surrendered.
The Israel State archives hold several movies and photos showing Allenby's historical entrance to Jerusalem:
1) A part of a newsreel from the First World War, 10 minute long, which shows Allenby marching into Jerusalem.
3) Posters of the declaration of martial law in Jerusalem written in English, French, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek and Russian.
Monday, August 12, 2013
1968: Budgeting East Jerusalem
Today's document is a wee bit confusing. It was written by Yehuda Tamir, PM Levi Eshkol's man for dealing with East Jerusalem, and it details what the construction for the next year is to be. Except that nowadays, at any rate, that's decided by the Budget Department of the Finance Ministry, and even if the prime minister himself wants to have a certain result, it still goes through the FM, where the locals look at the suggestion balefully before eventually acquiescing (it is the prime minister, after all). Tamir's letter reeks of the confidence of someone who knows that his words, assumed to be those of his boss, will be acted upon.
It's a different world.
Another minor thing you need to keep in mind is that in the late 1960s, Israel's annual budget year ran from April 1 to March 31. An odd system, thankfully done away with for the complications it engendered. Why anyone would maintain such a system is beyond us.
(Yes, we know.)
Anyway. Not only was the budget year odd, they also didn't use Excel in those days, which makes deciphering the budget a bit challenging. I think he's talking about a sum in the excess of 12 million IL, some to come from bank loans, but I may be misreading. The items in the letter are pretty clear. There is to be construction for Jews on Jerusalem's north side, at Givat Hamivtar, French Hill and elsewhere. The planning of what later became East Talpiyot was to be completed so as to begin construction in 1970. The government offices on the road to Mont Scopus are to be promoted.
Yet there was also a budget for Arabs; homes were to be built for Arabs in Wadi Joz and Beit Hanina. The construction at Beit Hanina really did happen and the buildings are still there; I don't know about Wadi Joz.
It's a different world.
Another minor thing you need to keep in mind is that in the late 1960s, Israel's annual budget year ran from April 1 to March 31. An odd system, thankfully done away with for the complications it engendered. Why anyone would maintain such a system is beyond us.
(Yes, we know.)
Anyway. Not only was the budget year odd, they also didn't use Excel in those days, which makes deciphering the budget a bit challenging. I think he's talking about a sum in the excess of 12 million IL, some to come from bank loans, but I may be misreading. The items in the letter are pretty clear. There is to be construction for Jews on Jerusalem's north side, at Givat Hamivtar, French Hill and elsewhere. The planning of what later became East Talpiyot was to be completed so as to begin construction in 1970. The government offices on the road to Mont Scopus are to be promoted.
Yet there was also a budget for Arabs; homes were to be built for Arabs in Wadi Joz and Beit Hanina. The construction at Beit Hanina really did happen and the buildings are still there; I don't know about Wadi Joz.
(File א-7921/3)
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Electrifying the Territories
The things a prime minister has to deal with, I tell you. We think we've got it tough, being so busy these past weeks that blogging has mostly stopped. Well, back in the first years after the Six Day War, the PM's office seems to have been involved with every tiniest detail pertaining to Israel's actions in Jerusalem, and if not every one of them, at least a startling range of things.
Here, look at this document from September 15, 1968. Yehuda Faust, the deputy manager of operations in East Jerusalem, sent a letter to the electricity company (and to the ministers of defense, justice, development, the mayor of Jerusalem and various others) reporting on a recent meeting where it had been decided to lay high-voltage cables to the Jewish neighborhoods in north-east Jerusalem such as French Hill and Givat Hamivtar, and also to series of military camps, mostly to the north. Alas, meetings and decisions were one thing, and actions on the ground were another, so Faust was nagging.
He also included various technical data. There were to be 89 km of cable, at a cost of IL3,240,000.
On page 3, which was apparently added a bit later, Mr Rakover (whoever he was) announced he couldn't string up cables in East Jerusalem without someone in authority OK'ing it, and he didn't know who that might be.
Page 5 mentions that to the south of Jerusalem, some of the installations are settlements, not military camps.
Here, look at this document from September 15, 1968. Yehuda Faust, the deputy manager of operations in East Jerusalem, sent a letter to the electricity company (and to the ministers of defense, justice, development, the mayor of Jerusalem and various others) reporting on a recent meeting where it had been decided to lay high-voltage cables to the Jewish neighborhoods in north-east Jerusalem such as French Hill and Givat Hamivtar, and also to series of military camps, mostly to the north. Alas, meetings and decisions were one thing, and actions on the ground were another, so Faust was nagging.
He also included various technical data. There were to be 89 km of cable, at a cost of IL3,240,000.
On page 3, which was apparently added a bit later, Mr Rakover (whoever he was) announced he couldn't string up cables in East Jerusalem without someone in authority OK'ing it, and he didn't know who that might be.
Page 5 mentions that to the south of Jerusalem, some of the installations are settlements, not military camps.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Catching the Bus to the Kotel
On February 16, 1969, a fellow by the name of Bazrai (whose family must have come from Basra) sent a letter to Yehuda Tamir, Levy Eshkol's top aide for Jerusalem affairs, reporting about a meeting he had recently held with representatives of Egged, the main bus company.
At the meeting it was decided to launch a regular bus line through the Old City, from Jaffa Gate to the Western Wall (the Kotel). It will stop at the Kishle police station, Zion Gate, The Jewish Quarter, and Dung Gate near the wall. It will come by every 15 minutes, meaning there will need to be two buses. The smallest buses in service can just inch by the arch in the Armenian Quarter, and it would be nice if someone could widen the alley at that point.The arch in the Armenian Quarter was of course never tampered with; it's still there and the small buses still inch by.
The line will connect to lines 18 and 20 and for 35 cents (agorot) passengers will be able to get a connecting ticket; a single ticket will be 20 agorot, while a normal single bus ticket on all the other lines is 25 agorot.
The service will operate between 6am (for early risers who want to pray the morning service at the Kotel) until 9:30pm.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Cabinet Transcripts are Off-Limits Even if You Were There
Blogging has been very slow recently, and sadly, will probably remain slow. There's been a parallel uptick in our activities on at least four tracks, and what with blogging being a luxury, well, we've not had the time. At least two of the projects may generate visible or reportable results by summer's end; the others will take longer but will generate lasting change which is intended to benefit our public.
Still, since I've got at least three files open on my desk, I really ought to flip through them before sending them back. One is Levy Eshkol's East Jerusalem file which has supplied grist for a number of recent posts. One of them was about the reconstruction of the Hurva synagogue, which ultimately didn't happen until 40 years later.
Apparently on January 1, 1969, the Cabinet discussed the idea. By now, 2013, the transcript of that meeting has been declassified and I could call it up and tell you what happened at the meeting if I wasn't otherwise engaged. Yaacov Lipshuetz, the Haifa attorney who had been nagging for months and not allowing the matter to slide, had to write the Cabinet secretary for a copy of the transcript at the time.
Nope, he was told. Cabinet transcripts don't get published or even sent in the mail. Anyway, since you were there, you know what transpired.
Helpful, huh? Readers of this blog, of course, can and do see such transcripts with some regularity, which just goes to show that you need to be wise in choosing your decade of birth.
Still, since I've got at least three files open on my desk, I really ought to flip through them before sending them back. One is Levy Eshkol's East Jerusalem file which has supplied grist for a number of recent posts. One of them was about the reconstruction of the Hurva synagogue, which ultimately didn't happen until 40 years later.
Apparently on January 1, 1969, the Cabinet discussed the idea. By now, 2013, the transcript of that meeting has been declassified and I could call it up and tell you what happened at the meeting if I wasn't otherwise engaged. Yaacov Lipshuetz, the Haifa attorney who had been nagging for months and not allowing the matter to slide, had to write the Cabinet secretary for a copy of the transcript at the time.
Nope, he was told. Cabinet transcripts don't get published or even sent in the mail. Anyway, since you were there, you know what transpired.
Helpful, huh? Readers of this blog, of course, can and do see such transcripts with some regularity, which just goes to show that you need to be wise in choosing your decade of birth.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Incorporation Papers of the Jewish Quarter Company
Today's document is a dreary legal affair: the incorporation of the Company for Development of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City (September 1968). This is the organization which rebuilt the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, and turned it from a pile of rubble into a modern residential neighborhood in one of the worlds' oldest cities, even while preserving the immense archaeological site it is built on, and serving millions of tourists annually.
The document itself is as bad as most such documents are, so we're going to cheat. We're going to send the link to this post to a reader of our blog who is both a lawyer and an incurable Jerusalem expert. If he thinks the document has interesting stuff in it, we'll post his comments automatically. (Readers are encouraged to chip in if they'd like.)
The second thing we're gong to do is point out that we found the document in a file from the office of Prime Minster Levi Eshkol, and it was sent to him after a discussion in the Cabinet subcommittee for economic affairs - which indicates that the whole issue was being closely watched by the very top of the government. Most companies don't have the prime minister poking around in their papers.
Ah, and a third matter, a little anecdote. The secretary of the Cabinet subcommittee was one Michael Nir. These days Michael Nir, the same man, works part time on the staff of the ISA - though he's rather a bit older these days.
The second thing we're gong to do is point out that we found the document in a file from the office of Prime Minster Levi Eshkol, and it was sent to him after a discussion in the Cabinet subcommittee for economic affairs - which indicates that the whole issue was being closely watched by the very top of the government. Most companies don't have the prime minister poking around in their papers.
Ah, and a third matter, a little anecdote. The secretary of the Cabinet subcommittee was one Michael Nir. These days Michael Nir, the same man, works part time on the staff of the ISA - though he's rather a bit older these days.
(Photo: Wikipedia Commons)
Thursday, June 27, 2013
"We Must Rebuild the Hurva!"
Before the destruction of the ancient Jewish Quarter in the Old City in 1948, the most impressive of its many synagogues went by the odd name of the Hurva, which means The Ruin. The reason for this went back to the early 19th century, when construction was begun and then abandoned; in the 19th century, however, a very fine building was constructed, but the traditional name stuck.
In the battle for the Jewish Quarter in May 1948, the dome of the building was damaged, but when the Jews surrendered to the Arab Legion and left, it was still standing. When Israel took the city in June 1967, the Hurva looked like - well, a hurva.
In late 1968, a Haifa architect named Yaacov Salomon began a frustrating correspondence with the office of Levi Eshkol, the prime minister. Salomon was representing the famous American-Jewish architect Louis Kahn, who had apparently drawn up a proposal to rebuild the Hurva. Correctly or not, Salomon assumed that the only way to make this happen was by convincing the prime minister. To his growing frustration, he wasn't able to reach the prime minster, and certainly not to convince him. In today's documents we can follow his repeated letters to Eshkol - there are at least five of them - between September and November 1968. In response to one of the first letters Eshkol had written that his opinion was that rebuilding the Jewish quarter - the apartments - was more urgent than rebuilding the synagogue, but Salomon disagreed, and wrote ever more exasperated letters. Eshkol's aides, meanwhile, kept putting off the date for a meeting, and this, of course, made Salomon even angrier.
There was the small matter that Eshkol was dying of cancer, but this wasn't public knowledge. It was known, even to Salomon, that he was ill, but this didn't register. In November, he announced that he was washing his hands of the matter. In February 1969, Eshkol passed away, and if the subject was brought to the next prime minster, Golda Meir, the file from Eshkol's office doesn't say.
The synagogue itself was only rebuilt in the early 21st century, and now looks like this:
There was the small matter that Eshkol was dying of cancer, but this wasn't public knowledge. It was known, even to Salomon, that he was ill, but this didn't register. In November, he announced that he was washing his hands of the matter. In February 1969, Eshkol passed away, and if the subject was brought to the next prime minster, Golda Meir, the file from Eshkol's office doesn't say.
The synagogue itself was only rebuilt in the early 21st century, and now looks like this:
(The pictures are all from Wikipedia commons. The file with the letters is ג-6423/9)
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Construction Status in Jerusalem, September 1968
It's been ages since we've posted on what used to be one of our main pet projects, namely Jerusalem after the Six Day War. Well, yesterday a file crossed my desk which had been ordered by a researcher in the reading room; when he declared it "uninteresting" someone brought it to me to have a peek. I don't think it's uninteresting. (ג-6423/9)
The file is from Levi Eshkol's office. The particular document we'll start with is an unsigned report from September 19, 1968, summarizing government construction projects in Jerusalem 15 months after the war.
In the east of the city there are 900 apartments under construction, and another 600 will be in construction within six months, for a total of 1,500. In the west part of town, the government is constructing 800 apartments, and private builders are working on 700, so that's also 1,500 units. We've prepared plots for the construction of 1,900 units in the east, but there aren't enough builders.
On Mount Scopus, enough dormitories are being built to accommodate 450 students by the beginning of the academic year (early November, apparently).
The first stage of construction on the national headquarters of the Police has been completed; the rest will be completed according to plan. Meanwhile, the Jerusalem headquarters has been moved to the Jericho Road in East Jerusalem.
The construction of 200 units for Arabs has been authorized. A fund has been set up, and IL250,000 of IL1m have already been earmarked.
Reconstruction is underway in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. 450 squatters have been removed from the shacks and ruins they were living in; 100 Jews have been settled in the first 200 rooms to have been renovated. They will be joined soon by another 300, and the renovation plans for additional structures are underway. We've begun laying water and electric mains. We've invested IL500,000 in removing 10,000 cubic meters of debris from the area.
Next year, we'll build 400 units on French Hill and 1,000 on Givat Hatachmoshet and 600 in Neve Yaacov (in East Jerusalem). Normally it takes 18 months to build a unit, but in light of the labor shortage it's taking longer.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Borders of Jerusalem
Today's post is purely informative; we'll leave any and all narrative to the readers.
Below is a section of a map which was drawn in 1949, and is filed in ג-3013/12, which comes from Ben Gurion's office and deals with matters of mass immigration in 1949-1953. The full map contains proposals for settling the large numbers of new immigrants. The section we're presenting, however, isn't about that; it's about the lines of 1947 and 1949 in the Jerusalem area.
The blue line is the intended border of the Corpus Separandum, the section of Mandatory Palestine which the United Nations didn't allocate to either side, Jews or Arabs, in the partition plan it adopted on November 29th 1947. The red line is a reasonable approximation of the 1949 armistice lines, referred to these days as the Green Line of 1967.
The little-known fact demonstrated by this map is that more than two thirds of the intended Corpus Seprandum lies outside the Green Line, in territory controlled between 1949-1967 by Jordan; and it includes the town of Bethlehem, as well as the area which today contains Maaleh Adumim.
Below is a section of a map which was drawn in 1949, and is filed in ג-3013/12, which comes from Ben Gurion's office and deals with matters of mass immigration in 1949-1953. The full map contains proposals for settling the large numbers of new immigrants. The section we're presenting, however, isn't about that; it's about the lines of 1947 and 1949 in the Jerusalem area.
The blue line is the intended border of the Corpus Separandum, the section of Mandatory Palestine which the United Nations didn't allocate to either side, Jews or Arabs, in the partition plan it adopted on November 29th 1947. The red line is a reasonable approximation of the 1949 armistice lines, referred to these days as the Green Line of 1967.
The little-known fact demonstrated by this map is that more than two thirds of the intended Corpus Seprandum lies outside the Green Line, in territory controlled between 1949-1967 by Jordan; and it includes the town of Bethlehem, as well as the area which today contains Maaleh Adumim.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Scuffling at the Mughrabi Gate
According to the Times of Israel, a UNESCO investigative team which was about to visit Jerusalem has been disinvited by Israel. Apparently part of the team's agenda was to investigate the matter of the Mughrabi Gate, which leads from the Kotel (Western Wall) into the Temple Mount compound. We don't have anything intelligent to say about this particular case, but it just so happens that we've got an interesting document about Israelis and Palestinians disagreeing about the Mughrabi Gate.
In early October 1967, four months after the Six Day War, Talmi al-Mukhtashev, head of the Waqf in Jerusalem, sent a letter to Levi Eshkol, Israel's prime minister. If he was in any way cowed by the new rulers, he managed to hide it, as he castigated Israeli actions at the Western Wall and the Mughrabi Gate.
In early October 1967, four months after the Six Day War, Talmi al-Mukhtashev, head of the Waqf in Jerusalem, sent a letter to Levi Eshkol, Israel's prime minister. If he was in any way cowed by the new rulers, he managed to hide it, as he castigated Israeli actions at the Western Wall and the Mughrabi Gate.
Last month we sent your honor a telegram warning that Israeli forces had taken over the Mughrabi Gate and opened it to the public; we demanded this action be undone and the key to the gate returned to us. We received confirmation of the telegram's arrival, but when no change was seen on the ground we've sent additional letters demanding the same.A note attached to the letter explained that it had been sent to various officials, including the police, Ministry of Justice and others, but that no answer was intended to the complaint. (File א-7921/3).
The open gate has enabled uncontrolled visits. Muslim worshippers have been cursed, Jewish tourists have misbehaved and some even had picnics and otherwise behave as tourists on the Temple Mount [the original Arabic probably called it Haram A-Sharif]. These events have caused offense to the Muslims, and we demand that the keys be handed back so the Waqf alone will control the area.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
1971: Planning for Jerusalem in 1980
In December 1971 Uri Mor wrote a report titled The Arabs of East Jerusalem, A Forecast for the 1980s. We recently met Mor, a staffer of the Office for Arab Affairs in the Prime Minister's Office. The copy in file גל-13908/2 is unfortunately truncated, and ends abruptly at page 13, but since by then it has covered quite a bit of ground, it seems safe to assume we've looking at most of the original.
Making predictions is always tricky, as the saying goes, and especially predictions about the future; making predictions about the future of Jerusalem seems, frankly, like a fool's errand. Making predictions about the future of Jerusalem then filing them in an archives whence they can be extracted and re-read in light of what actually transpired is, well, not recommended.
Mor prefaces his predictions about Jerusalem in 1980 by enumerating many of the things that could skewer his assumptions: there might be political changes in the West Bank or in Jordan. A new Pan-Arab hero such as Nasser might rise and excite the Arabs of Jerusalem. He notes various alternatives in which the Arabs of the West Bank and Jerusalem might coalesce around a leader of their own (though he doesn't see an obvious candidate). There might be negotiations between Israel and Jordan, which would inflame Arab public opinion on the West Bank where King Hussein is so hated following his massacre of Palestinians (in 1970 - and interestingly, he manages not to use the word "Palestinians"). Nor is he comfortable in projecting what the economic relations between Israel, West Bank and Jordan will be in the coming decade. Having said all that, however, he then sets out to make his projections.
He starts with demographic projections. In 1967 there were 68,500 Arabs in the city, and 200,300 Jews. In 1980 there will be 97,000 Arabs and 292,000 Jews. Of the Arabs, some 82% will be Muslim, and the rest Christians. Here is a demographic report from 2010 - 30 years later than Mor's target date - which comes from this useful website. So far as I can make out, Mor's figures for 1980 weren't far from the mark, though the trends were a bit different: a steady 3-1 relation of Jews to Arabs in Jerusalem has eroded significantly in the interval (it's now about 2-1 and sinking); the proportion of Christians among the Arabs has eroded even more.
He correctly foresees a sinking birthrate of Jews and Arabs, and fails to see that the death rate would also sink. He wonders if there's any chance of unifying Jerusalem with Bethlehem and Ramalah, apparently an idea he'd heard somewhere, but saw no sense in it. On the other hand, he also speculates that Ramalah might someday become the capital of the West Bank (true, since the late 1990s). He suspected there might be significant immigration of Arabs from the Hebron area into East Jerusalem, and wondered what this would do to the internal political dynamics of the Arabs.
On employment, he seems to have correctly foreseen that a significant chunk of the Arabs would work in construction in the Jewish sector. He didn't see much future for Arab light industry (there's isn't much heavy industry in Jerusalem and never has been). He did expect there to be a growing number of jointly-owned Jewish-Arab commercial or light-industry enterprises. This didn't happen. He saw a growing problem of educated Arabs who wouldn't find proper employment in Israeli institutions.
Interestingly, he expected growing integration to result in a growing number of Arabs acquiring Israeli citizenship.Within a decade, he dared to expect, they'll all be voting in the municipal elections. In national-level elections he expected Jerusalem's Arabs to support the Israeli Arab leaders. None of this happened, not in the 1980s, and hardly in 2013, either.
He went back and forth on what to expect regarding security and violence, but seems to have decided, on balance, to expect an encroaching pseudo-peace. As a projection for 1980, this wasn't bad.
He was considerably more optimistic about the Christian Arab community than time warranted. He knew they'd been declining for years, but expected, for some reason, that Israel's presence would reverse this process. It didn't.
Finally, he turns to the relations between Jews and Arabs. He felt the most significant factor would be how Israel relates to the Arab leadership - and then he continues his discussion on page 14 which we don't have.
Making predictions is always tricky, as the saying goes, and especially predictions about the future; making predictions about the future of Jerusalem seems, frankly, like a fool's errand. Making predictions about the future of Jerusalem then filing them in an archives whence they can be extracted and re-read in light of what actually transpired is, well, not recommended.
Mor prefaces his predictions about Jerusalem in 1980 by enumerating many of the things that could skewer his assumptions: there might be political changes in the West Bank or in Jordan. A new Pan-Arab hero such as Nasser might rise and excite the Arabs of Jerusalem. He notes various alternatives in which the Arabs of the West Bank and Jerusalem might coalesce around a leader of their own (though he doesn't see an obvious candidate). There might be negotiations between Israel and Jordan, which would inflame Arab public opinion on the West Bank where King Hussein is so hated following his massacre of Palestinians (in 1970 - and interestingly, he manages not to use the word "Palestinians"). Nor is he comfortable in projecting what the economic relations between Israel, West Bank and Jordan will be in the coming decade. Having said all that, however, he then sets out to make his projections.
He starts with demographic projections. In 1967 there were 68,500 Arabs in the city, and 200,300 Jews. In 1980 there will be 97,000 Arabs and 292,000 Jews. Of the Arabs, some 82% will be Muslim, and the rest Christians. Here is a demographic report from 2010 - 30 years later than Mor's target date - which comes from this useful website. So far as I can make out, Mor's figures for 1980 weren't far from the mark, though the trends were a bit different: a steady 3-1 relation of Jews to Arabs in Jerusalem has eroded significantly in the interval (it's now about 2-1 and sinking); the proportion of Christians among the Arabs has eroded even more.
He correctly foresees a sinking birthrate of Jews and Arabs, and fails to see that the death rate would also sink. He wonders if there's any chance of unifying Jerusalem with Bethlehem and Ramalah, apparently an idea he'd heard somewhere, but saw no sense in it. On the other hand, he also speculates that Ramalah might someday become the capital of the West Bank (true, since the late 1990s). He suspected there might be significant immigration of Arabs from the Hebron area into East Jerusalem, and wondered what this would do to the internal political dynamics of the Arabs.
On employment, he seems to have correctly foreseen that a significant chunk of the Arabs would work in construction in the Jewish sector. He didn't see much future for Arab light industry (there's isn't much heavy industry in Jerusalem and never has been). He did expect there to be a growing number of jointly-owned Jewish-Arab commercial or light-industry enterprises. This didn't happen. He saw a growing problem of educated Arabs who wouldn't find proper employment in Israeli institutions.
Interestingly, he expected growing integration to result in a growing number of Arabs acquiring Israeli citizenship.Within a decade, he dared to expect, they'll all be voting in the municipal elections. In national-level elections he expected Jerusalem's Arabs to support the Israeli Arab leaders. None of this happened, not in the 1980s, and hardly in 2013, either.
He went back and forth on what to expect regarding security and violence, but seems to have decided, on balance, to expect an encroaching pseudo-peace. As a projection for 1980, this wasn't bad.
He was considerably more optimistic about the Christian Arab community than time warranted. He knew they'd been declining for years, but expected, for some reason, that Israel's presence would reverse this process. It didn't.
Finally, he turns to the relations between Jews and Arabs. He felt the most significant factor would be how Israel relates to the Arab leadership - and then he continues his discussion on page 14 which we don't have.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
1972: Strengthening Israel's Control of East Jerusalem
It has been a while since we've posted about East Jerusalem. Today's document is interesting because it's not clear what its significance might be. It's a six-page handwritten draft, on the back of discarded official correspondence, signed by Uri Mor and addressed to his boss, Shmuel Toledano, the Advisor for Arab Affairs. In the top left corner, there's a squigly which looks like Toledano's initials, so he may indeed have read it. The file itself, גל-13908.2, we've already met (here), and it's from Toledano's office. The date is March 27, 1972. All in all, then, though at first glance it looks like a half-baked draft that should have ended up in the wastepaper bin, it is probably a valuable document for understanding the mindset of anonymous mid-level Israeli officials working on the unification of Jerusalem, five years after the act of unification itself. Did it inform policy? Did it create any action? Who knows?
Mor's thesis is that true unification of Jerusalem will happen when Jews and Arabs live together. Even commercial transactions, he says, aren't the goal, merely a way to create coexistence. Yet his recipe for achieving the goal are unconvincing.
The situation in the city, as Mor saw it, was that the Arabs of East Jerusalem had gotten used to Israel's control; the municipality was giving them good service; and the connections to Jordan were fraying. And yet, he mused, many of the Arabs now had needs for services which are supplied by the government, not the municipality, such as restitution for damaged property, and also, the smooth relations with local Arab leaders might perhaps not reflect the opinion of the general populace. He recommended creating an active cadre of hundreds of locals who would meet Israeli officials regularly and mediate between them and their communities. Apparently his office was to spearhead this effort, thereby increasing its importance.
Mor also noted various social trends. The Christian community is diminishing, while the Muslim population is growing. This growth is fueled by a high birthrate and also by immigration from the West Bank into Jerusalem because of the better economic conditions in town. He advocated close monitoring of the social and economic trends, though it's not clear that he had any way of influencing them. He suggested encouraging the publication of a pro-Israeli Arab newspaper, and repeated that there must be better connections with prominent Arab figures.
It's a rather odd document. The claim that the Arabs of East Jerusalem were already integrating into Israel in 1972 sounds over-optimistic. The measures he recommends veer from monitoring - which is a type of intelligence gathering - to some form of top-down encouragement. Surprisingly (or not), the document reads more as a justification of the office than a blueprint to create significant change on the ground. Full of good intentions and fine sentiments, lacking in any malice or arrogance, but strangely hollow.
Mor's thesis is that true unification of Jerusalem will happen when Jews and Arabs live together. Even commercial transactions, he says, aren't the goal, merely a way to create coexistence. Yet his recipe for achieving the goal are unconvincing.
The situation in the city, as Mor saw it, was that the Arabs of East Jerusalem had gotten used to Israel's control; the municipality was giving them good service; and the connections to Jordan were fraying. And yet, he mused, many of the Arabs now had needs for services which are supplied by the government, not the municipality, such as restitution for damaged property, and also, the smooth relations with local Arab leaders might perhaps not reflect the opinion of the general populace. He recommended creating an active cadre of hundreds of locals who would meet Israeli officials regularly and mediate between them and their communities. Apparently his office was to spearhead this effort, thereby increasing its importance.
Mor also noted various social trends. The Christian community is diminishing, while the Muslim population is growing. This growth is fueled by a high birthrate and also by immigration from the West Bank into Jerusalem because of the better economic conditions in town. He advocated close monitoring of the social and economic trends, though it's not clear that he had any way of influencing them. He suggested encouraging the publication of a pro-Israeli Arab newspaper, and repeated that there must be better connections with prominent Arab figures.
It's a rather odd document. The claim that the Arabs of East Jerusalem were already integrating into Israel in 1972 sounds over-optimistic. The measures he recommends veer from monitoring - which is a type of intelligence gathering - to some form of top-down encouragement. Surprisingly (or not), the document reads more as a justification of the office than a blueprint to create significant change on the ground. Full of good intentions and fine sentiments, lacking in any malice or arrogance, but strangely hollow.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
A Turf War in Jerusalem with Real Significance
On March 5, 1972, Shmuel Toledano, the Advisor on Arab Affairs to the Prime Minister, sent a letter to his boss, Golda Meir:
Two years ago, the government decided that the Arabs of East Jerusalem are to be regarded similarly as the Arab minority in Israel, and that therefore my office should be in charge of their affairs. [Meaning they are different from the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza, who were not treated as Israeli citizens.] At the time, the Minister of Police (Shlomo Hillel) agreed. Since then, the minister has been criticizing my office as if we're treading on his turf. No one is arguing against police involvement in police matters, though fortunately there are ever fewer security issues in east Jerusalem, as the populace is integrating into the west part of town. We should be encouraging this integration while working to detach the Arabs of Jerusalem from the Arabs of the West Bank - as my office is striving to do. It would be a mistake to have the minister of police involved in matters touching upon negotiations about the future of the West Bank and Jerusalem:The file I found this letter in (גל-13908/2) doesn't record what Golda's decision was. Whether Toledano won this particular argument or not, the fundamental issue was decided - from the Israeli perspective at least - in his favor. What history has to say about this remains to be seen.
a. This is the opposite of detaching the two groups.
b. Most of the affairs of the Arabs of East Jerusalem are now civic and economic, not police issues. As the municipal elections approach, and there are 40,000 eligible voters in East Jerusalem, my office has the expertise to work with them correctly.
c. In the earliest years of the state there was a minister of "Police and Minorities". This caused resentment among the Arabs of Israel and it was discontinued. We should be careful not to regress.
It is a fact, as the minister notes, that some of the leaders of the Arabs of the West bank live in Jerusalem. Yet we should be working to seperate the two communities, not unite them.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
The Sad Tale of Mekor Haim Street
For the past 20 years, the ISA has been housed in temporary quarters on Mekor Haim Street near the commercial area of Talpiyot in Jerusalem. Someday, we'll move to a real building meant to house the national archives - though, truth be told, we have other, more pressing challenges to face (here, for example, or here). In the meantime, however, we're situated on what was once, many years ago, a quiet residential lane, but now looks like this:
Ah, the good old times...
Or not. Just the other day someone showed me these two English-language letters from 1940, from which one can learn that in March 1940, and also in May, Mekor Haim was anything but a quiet residential lane. Not at all.
Which just goes to show that on Mekor Haim St, the temporary is decidedly permanent.
Ah, the good old times...
Or not. Just the other day someone showed me these two English-language letters from 1940, from which one can learn that in March 1940, and also in May, Mekor Haim was anything but a quiet residential lane. Not at all.
Which just goes to show that on Mekor Haim St, the temporary is decidedly permanent.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
How to Sell Arab Property in East Jerusalem
Following the mild self-rebuke of the previous post about using too many words on this blog while presenting long-winded documents, here's a short post about a very slim file (גל-13922/11, if you insist on its name). It contains all of five brief letters, and yet it underlines an entire field of bureaucratic practice which has never been fully clarified: who decided who owned which property in the territories Israel took control of in 1967. If you think about it for a moment, it's an extremely important issue, and it underlies much of the settlement project. Of course, this particular file shines a light at the issue, it doesn't resolve it.
On April 7, 1971, S. Shapira, a lawyer at the Land Authority, wrote a two-paragraph note to the Attorney General: we're seeing a growing number of Arabs living in other countries who are sending us their representatives so as to sell their East-Jerusalem real estate to Israelis. How are we supposed to deal with such transactions? (p.2)
On April 19, Michal Bodenkin, an assistant to the AG, replied even more tersely: We'll need to deal with each separate case (p.3); she then sent a copy of her letter to the Advisor on Arab Affairs (p.4). Marking turf, apparently.
Why was there an upswing of such transactions? It wouldn't reflect the very large construction projects getting underway in East Jerusalem, as those were administered centrally, while Shapira's query seems to refer to individual transactions. The file offers no explanation; when we find one we'll tell.
The final document in the file is pure turf-wars, but its subject is interesting: Zvi Terlow, the executive director of the Ministry of Justice, announces to lots of important folks in lots of ministries, that all cases of claims by Jews on land plots in the territories must go through his ministry. It was February 1974, and I assume someone was seeing a rise in Jews purchasing land on the West Bank; the Gush Emunim settler movement was to break onto the public scene within weeks.
On April 7, 1971, S. Shapira, a lawyer at the Land Authority, wrote a two-paragraph note to the Attorney General: we're seeing a growing number of Arabs living in other countries who are sending us their representatives so as to sell their East-Jerusalem real estate to Israelis. How are we supposed to deal with such transactions? (p.2)
On April 19, Michal Bodenkin, an assistant to the AG, replied even more tersely: We'll need to deal with each separate case (p.3); she then sent a copy of her letter to the Advisor on Arab Affairs (p.4). Marking turf, apparently.
Why was there an upswing of such transactions? It wouldn't reflect the very large construction projects getting underway in East Jerusalem, as those were administered centrally, while Shapira's query seems to refer to individual transactions. The file offers no explanation; when we find one we'll tell.
The final document in the file is pure turf-wars, but its subject is interesting: Zvi Terlow, the executive director of the Ministry of Justice, announces to lots of important folks in lots of ministries, that all cases of claims by Jews on land plots in the territories must go through his ministry. It was February 1974, and I assume someone was seeing a rise in Jews purchasing land on the West Bank; the Gush Emunim settler movement was to break onto the public scene within weeks.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Seizure of Private Property in East Jerusalem
Let's not beat around the bush. In May 1967 there were no Jews in the Jordanian sections of Jerusalem. Today there are more than 200,000 Jews living in the parts of town that Israel took from Jordan in the Six Day War. Most of them live on what were once empty hilltops, as those of us old enough to remember can attest even without any archives. Yet even barren rocky hilltops may have been owned, at least in some cases, by individuals. And some of those Jews moved into places such as the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, where the ruined buildings were owned by someone, or the decrepit buildings were inhabited. Which means that at some point, in 1967 or 1970 or 1972, Israel's government expropriated Arab property, or used Eminent Domain, whatever legal terminology you wish to use to describe the action of transferring ownership of property from some individuals, for the purpose of executing policy.
Today's file (גל-13927/17) comes from the Advisor for Arab Affairs, whom we introduced here (and also here). It doesn't describe Israel's policy of seizure of property, which was done in another agency (the Land Administration Agency), but rather the complaints about the policy which were directed towards the Prime Minister's Office, i.e. the Advisor for Arab Affairs in the PMO.
Most of the file is sealed. Not because there are any dark security secrets in it, but because by Israeli law, an individual who passes private information to an authority has the expectation of his (or her) privacy being respected. Once 70 years have passed we may assume the individuals are no longer alive and the files can be opened, but the letters in this file are from 40-45 years ago. Still, by way of giving a taste of what was in them, see pages 7 and 8.
The fellow on page 7, for example: He lived in the Old City, and had been informed his home was about to be seized. So he wrote to the prime minister and made five points:
1. My house is right next to the holy places of Jews and Muslims, so there's no price you can give me to equal what it's worth.
2. The government says the seizure is for the public good, but I don't see any benefit.
3. As an Israeli citizen I demand to stay where I am and I'll promise to respect all the laws.
4. I reserve the right to go to the courts.
5. I'm enclosing the documents which prove my ownership.
Or page 8: Yosef Dan-Gor writing to his boss, Shmuel Toledano, the Advisor for Arab Affairs himself, in the matter of two familes who own homes in the Sheikh Jarrakh area where the government intents to construct a number of ministries. The two familes are obstinate not to leave. Ovad Yakir of the Land Administration Authority, he writes, has suggested I meet them and make a seriously generous offer, before we turn to legal action. I think he's right, but I need your permission. [Intriguingly, they may not have been moved. If you go to the government compound in Sheikh Jarrah you can see that a number of older, Arab, homes are still there.]
Pages 2-5 are a letter from a voluntary welfare organization near the Mount of Olives. In January 196,8 they had been informed that they were to be moved elsewhere because the government was seizing their building, and they strenously obejcted. In addition to describing all the important things their organization did, they also pointed out that the building belonged to the Waqf and thus couldn't be expropriated, and also warned that such an action would cause public unrest and was against peace.
The letter on page 6 is also from Dan-Gor to his boss Toledano, in August 1960: there are five Arab families on French Hill who since January 1968 have been refusing all offers we've made. My impression is that they're not going to change their minds. [Here also: go to this area today and you'll see more than five Arab homes which have been there since before 1967. Are they the same families? Did Israel eventually back down?]
Page 9 is yet another letter from Dan-Gor: regarding the area where the Jordanian army had a military position south of the UN headquarters ("The Sausage"): Colonel Halamish informs us that the IDF is willing to vacate the hilltop to facilitate the construction of the Armon Hanaziv neighborhood.
And finally, most interestingly, the letter on page 10, Dan-Gor to his boss in May 1970: We're trying to seize an area in Wadi Joz so as to build a neighborhood for the [Arab] families which are being evicted from the Jewish Quarter in the Old City. The construction will be done by the [Arab] contractor Kalik Jad'On. The snag is that some of the owners of plots in that area are refusing to go along with the agreement we've already made with most of their neighbours, and now they've turned to the High Court of Justice (Bagatz).
Today's file (גל-13927/17) comes from the Advisor for Arab Affairs, whom we introduced here (and also here). It doesn't describe Israel's policy of seizure of property, which was done in another agency (the Land Administration Agency), but rather the complaints about the policy which were directed towards the Prime Minister's Office, i.e. the Advisor for Arab Affairs in the PMO.
Most of the file is sealed. Not because there are any dark security secrets in it, but because by Israeli law, an individual who passes private information to an authority has the expectation of his (or her) privacy being respected. Once 70 years have passed we may assume the individuals are no longer alive and the files can be opened, but the letters in this file are from 40-45 years ago. Still, by way of giving a taste of what was in them, see pages 7 and 8.
The fellow on page 7, for example: He lived in the Old City, and had been informed his home was about to be seized. So he wrote to the prime minister and made five points:
1. My house is right next to the holy places of Jews and Muslims, so there's no price you can give me to equal what it's worth.
2. The government says the seizure is for the public good, but I don't see any benefit.
3. As an Israeli citizen I demand to stay where I am and I'll promise to respect all the laws.
4. I reserve the right to go to the courts.
5. I'm enclosing the documents which prove my ownership.
Or page 8: Yosef Dan-Gor writing to his boss, Shmuel Toledano, the Advisor for Arab Affairs himself, in the matter of two familes who own homes in the Sheikh Jarrakh area where the government intents to construct a number of ministries. The two familes are obstinate not to leave. Ovad Yakir of the Land Administration Authority, he writes, has suggested I meet them and make a seriously generous offer, before we turn to legal action. I think he's right, but I need your permission. [Intriguingly, they may not have been moved. If you go to the government compound in Sheikh Jarrah you can see that a number of older, Arab, homes are still there.]
Pages 2-5 are a letter from a voluntary welfare organization near the Mount of Olives. In January 196,8 they had been informed that they were to be moved elsewhere because the government was seizing their building, and they strenously obejcted. In addition to describing all the important things their organization did, they also pointed out that the building belonged to the Waqf and thus couldn't be expropriated, and also warned that such an action would cause public unrest and was against peace.
The letter on page 6 is also from Dan-Gor to his boss Toledano, in August 1960: there are five Arab families on French Hill who since January 1968 have been refusing all offers we've made. My impression is that they're not going to change their minds. [Here also: go to this area today and you'll see more than five Arab homes which have been there since before 1967. Are they the same families? Did Israel eventually back down?]
Page 9 is yet another letter from Dan-Gor: regarding the area where the Jordanian army had a military position south of the UN headquarters ("The Sausage"): Colonel Halamish informs us that the IDF is willing to vacate the hilltop to facilitate the construction of the Armon Hanaziv neighborhood.
And finally, most interestingly, the letter on page 10, Dan-Gor to his boss in May 1970: We're trying to seize an area in Wadi Joz so as to build a neighborhood for the [Arab] families which are being evicted from the Jewish Quarter in the Old City. The construction will be done by the [Arab] contractor Kalik Jad'On. The snag is that some of the owners of plots in that area are refusing to go along with the agreement we've already made with most of their neighbours, and now they've turned to the High Court of Justice (Bagatz).
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
The Government Protocols: Mid-september 1948
We continue our series of presenting the protocols of the cabinet (see the previous installment here).
In the week of September 8, 1948, the cabinet convened twice, on the 8th and on the 12th. There were three main topics to be discussed, all of them still relevant in 2013.
The first was the relationship between the State of Israel and its Orthodox citizens, focusing on the conditions of miltary service and how they might be squared with religious commandments. Apparently some Orthodox soldiers near Netanya had been ordered to do something they felt they couldn't do, so they'd been arrested. This prompted one of the religious ministers, Rabbi Fishman, to threaten to resign. The cabinet told him his resignation wouldn't be accepted, and also ordered the soldiers released, as well as set up to figure out how to deal with such matters. A similar committee will undoubtedly be set up as soon as the present coalition negotiations end, and it won't be the last, either.
There was a discussion about the high consumer prices and what to do about them. A committee was set up. (And another will be set up any day now, just wait and see.)
Finally, there was discussion about Israel's position at the UN regarding Jerusalem. It can be summarized thusly: Israel will not relinquish its control of the Western half, and certainly not for some sort of internationalization; if, however, the UN decided that the Old City should be internationalized (Israel didn't control that part), Israel might be willing to go along with the idea. Better that than Jordanian control which would prevent any access to Jews. (As indeed happened.) Without being privy to any insider information, it's safe to bet that this, also, is on the agenda of Israel's present political leaders, all these years later.
In the week of September 8, 1948, the cabinet convened twice, on the 8th and on the 12th. There were three main topics to be discussed, all of them still relevant in 2013.
The first was the relationship between the State of Israel and its Orthodox citizens, focusing on the conditions of miltary service and how they might be squared with religious commandments. Apparently some Orthodox soldiers near Netanya had been ordered to do something they felt they couldn't do, so they'd been arrested. This prompted one of the religious ministers, Rabbi Fishman, to threaten to resign. The cabinet told him his resignation wouldn't be accepted, and also ordered the soldiers released, as well as set up to figure out how to deal with such matters. A similar committee will undoubtedly be set up as soon as the present coalition negotiations end, and it won't be the last, either.
There was a discussion about the high consumer prices and what to do about them. A committee was set up. (And another will be set up any day now, just wait and see.)
Finally, there was discussion about Israel's position at the UN regarding Jerusalem. It can be summarized thusly: Israel will not relinquish its control of the Western half, and certainly not for some sort of internationalization; if, however, the UN decided that the Old City should be internationalized (Israel didn't control that part), Israel might be willing to go along with the idea. Better that than Jordanian control which would prevent any access to Jews. (As indeed happened.) Without being privy to any insider information, it's safe to bet that this, also, is on the agenda of Israel's present political leaders, all these years later.
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Initiating a Large Settlement: Next
Here's another thread we should have made more progress on than we did. Almost a month ago, we presented a document from corridors of the Ministry of Construction and Housing, which told how in December 1980, some of the officials were gearing up the planning process of a new town north of Jerusalem. At the time we told part of the story which appears in the file, and promised we'd post the second half the next day... Ah well. That didn't work out, did it.
Anyway. That previous document was an internal summary written by one Ministry of Construction official to another. It was very business-like: 'we're running out of space to build neighborhoods, and we've got to look further afield.' We don't know what happened next, but in February the file contains a flurry of follow-up letters, all of them from beyond the ministry. There are three identical letters sent on February 9th by one Yisrael Adler, who worked for the D.E.L. Development and Engineering company--one to the communications officer in the West Bank military governor's office; one to the Electricity Officer there, and one to the Head of Archeology at the Rockefeller Museum (I assume this means the Antiquities Authority). Each letter informs of the intention to plan a new town in the area, and requests to be informed where the communications and electricity lines are, and where the sensitive archaeological sites lie.
And note: An employee of a private firm is requesting this information from state officials, in the service of a state project which has apparently hired the private firm.
If it's the minutiae of how policy gets implemented which interest you, the letter of February 18, 1981 is perhaps the most intriguing. Its author was Benny Dvir, who worked in the programs department of the Ministry of Construction and Housing, a subordinate of Zeev Barkai who wrote the letter launching this project (as we saw in the previous post). So it's a government document. It was sent to Engineer T. Litersdorf in Tel Aviv, one of the principles of The Litersdorf-Goldenberg engineering firm. It mentions that meetings have been going on, and recognizes that the private-sector professionals have seen Barkai's letter of December 1st. Dvir's letter summarizes what everyone knows so as to have a written record of it - so far, so standard paper-pushing. Yet then the letter itself veers off into new territory, when it presents the motivations for creating a new town north of Jerusalem:
Anyway. That previous document was an internal summary written by one Ministry of Construction official to another. It was very business-like: 'we're running out of space to build neighborhoods, and we've got to look further afield.' We don't know what happened next, but in February the file contains a flurry of follow-up letters, all of them from beyond the ministry. There are three identical letters sent on February 9th by one Yisrael Adler, who worked for the D.E.L. Development and Engineering company--one to the communications officer in the West Bank military governor's office; one to the Electricity Officer there, and one to the Head of Archeology at the Rockefeller Museum (I assume this means the Antiquities Authority). Each letter informs of the intention to plan a new town in the area, and requests to be informed where the communications and electricity lines are, and where the sensitive archaeological sites lie.
And note: An employee of a private firm is requesting this information from state officials, in the service of a state project which has apparently hired the private firm.
If it's the minutiae of how policy gets implemented which interest you, the letter of February 18, 1981 is perhaps the most intriguing. Its author was Benny Dvir, who worked in the programs department of the Ministry of Construction and Housing, a subordinate of Zeev Barkai who wrote the letter launching this project (as we saw in the previous post). So it's a government document. It was sent to Engineer T. Litersdorf in Tel Aviv, one of the principles of The Litersdorf-Goldenberg engineering firm. It mentions that meetings have been going on, and recognizes that the private-sector professionals have seen Barkai's letter of December 1st. Dvir's letter summarizes what everyone knows so as to have a written record of it - so far, so standard paper-pushing. Yet then the letter itself veers off into new territory, when it presents the motivations for creating a new town north of Jerusalem:
Political considerations:
1. Having analyzed various political options, the ministry has come to the conclusion that the Jewish presence in the metropolitan area of Jerusalem needs to be strengthened.
2. The non-Jewish neighborhoods (Azariya, Shuafat, al-Gib, Anata etc) are growing rapidly.
3. Within the city lines the ratio of Jews to non-Jews is 2.5:1. In the entire metropolitan area, however, it's more like 1:1. There needs to be a massive growth in the Jewish presence.
4. There's only one main road from the plain up to Jerusalem; we need to widen this corridor.
Urban considerations:
1. Housing prices in Jerusalem are too high.
2. Not enough diversity in the types of housing in the city.
3. If the city grows north, we may be able to develop train transport in that direction.
4. Greater diversity of employment.
Other considerations:
1. Size: at 15 km from Jerusalem we'll need a largish town; closer in, it can be smaller and lean on the center for services.
2. Ownership: while areas with private ownership are not impossible for development, we're looking for areas with state ownership.
3. We're looking for areas with convenient topography.I remind you that it was in response to these letters that the ministry ended up witha map and description of the E1 area (and E2-6, as well as W1-6)
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
1968: Housing Projects in Jerusalem
Back in 1968 (and perhaps before and after, our file doesn't say), the management of the Ministry of Housing and Construction used to convene once a month or so to review policies and programs. The minister (Mordechai Bentov in 1968) participated, as did the general manager, David Tene, and lots of top officials. They didn't set national housing policy, but their reviews covered all the large projects they were running and they discussed their pace of progress or - often - how budgetary constraints were preventing them from reaching their goals. In general, the protocols of these meetings would delight urban planners who are also history buffs, or historians of urban development; economic historians interested in how Israel's government tried to control the housing market may also take joy in these files.
The rest of us - well, let's just say one can find more dramatic files in the archives. Yet before we shrug and move on to the next file, let's glance quickly at file ג-4457/1which contains the records of three such meetings, in May, June and August 1968.
On May 29, 1968, Bentov opened the meeting by talking about a recent cut of IL140,000,000 to the ministry's budget (the money was being transfered to the Ministry of Defense). There was some good news, however, such as an added IL26,000,000 for construction in East Jerusalem (p. 2). Tene then commented that Jerusalem was about the only area where the ministry's large projects were progressing quickly (p. 4); the government had decided that Jerusalem and Beer Sheva had the highest priority. Further on, one of the participants noted that since construction in Jerusalem had been slow in previous years, there would be a shortage of new apartments until the current projects would begin to come onto the market, in 1969-70 (p. 6). Bentov also noted that the Prime Minister had urged him to set up a few dozen shacks near Mount Scopus so that someone would start moving in already.
At the next meeting, on June 5, 1968 (exactly a year after the Six Day War), Bentov opened his review by noting that on the land which had been expropriated in East Jerusalem, the ministry intended to build 2,500 housing units--1,200 in the first stage and the rest in a second stage. The original intention had been to start with 400 private homes on what is now known as Givat Hamivtar, but now it seemed better to allocate plots for only 250 of them and to use the rest for apartment buildings. This then set off a lively discussion, as more than 1,200 families had already signed up for the project. There was also a plan to build cheaper apartments near Sanhedria for religious families. (Well, that certainly happened.) (p.9-10)
Much of the meeting of August 22, 1968, focused on the various construction projects in East Jerusalem - certainly more than any other single area. One of the construction companies was already working, another two were expected to start very soon. One problem they were going to encounter was a lack of professional construction workers; discussions with the ministry of Labor were already underway to employ a few hundred laborers from the West Bank, some of whom would need to be sent through training courses. (p.14-ff).
All the construction projects being discussed in Summer 1968 were in the north-east of town: Sanhedria, Givat Hamivtar, French Hill, and perhaps the area which would later be named Ramat Eshkol (PM Levi Eshkol died in 1969).
The rest of us - well, let's just say one can find more dramatic files in the archives. Yet before we shrug and move on to the next file, let's glance quickly at file ג-4457/1which contains the records of three such meetings, in May, June and August 1968.
On May 29, 1968, Bentov opened the meeting by talking about a recent cut of IL140,000,000 to the ministry's budget (the money was being transfered to the Ministry of Defense). There was some good news, however, such as an added IL26,000,000 for construction in East Jerusalem (p. 2). Tene then commented that Jerusalem was about the only area where the ministry's large projects were progressing quickly (p. 4); the government had decided that Jerusalem and Beer Sheva had the highest priority. Further on, one of the participants noted that since construction in Jerusalem had been slow in previous years, there would be a shortage of new apartments until the current projects would begin to come onto the market, in 1969-70 (p. 6). Bentov also noted that the Prime Minister had urged him to set up a few dozen shacks near Mount Scopus so that someone would start moving in already.
At the next meeting, on June 5, 1968 (exactly a year after the Six Day War), Bentov opened his review by noting that on the land which had been expropriated in East Jerusalem, the ministry intended to build 2,500 housing units--1,200 in the first stage and the rest in a second stage. The original intention had been to start with 400 private homes on what is now known as Givat Hamivtar, but now it seemed better to allocate plots for only 250 of them and to use the rest for apartment buildings. This then set off a lively discussion, as more than 1,200 families had already signed up for the project. There was also a plan to build cheaper apartments near Sanhedria for religious families. (Well, that certainly happened.) (p.9-10)
Much of the meeting of August 22, 1968, focused on the various construction projects in East Jerusalem - certainly more than any other single area. One of the construction companies was already working, another two were expected to start very soon. One problem they were going to encounter was a lack of professional construction workers; discussions with the ministry of Labor were already underway to employ a few hundred laborers from the West Bank, some of whom would need to be sent through training courses. (p.14-ff).
All the construction projects being discussed in Summer 1968 were in the north-east of town: Sanhedria, Givat Hamivtar, French Hill, and perhaps the area which would later be named Ramat Eshkol (PM Levi Eshkol died in 1969).
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
ID Cards for Arabs in East Jerusalem (1967-70)
Yesterday I introduced the Advisor on Arab Affairs, and we looked at one of his files on East Jerusalem. Here's another one, of a very diferent character however. As the front page of the file indicates, its title is bland and uninformative: "ID cards". Could mean all sorts of things, no?
The file contains three distinct types of records, all of which indeed fit under that title. The first are a few letters dealing with the practicalities of handing out Israeli ID cards to the Arabs of East Jerusalem.
On page 2 of the file we've got a handwritten summary of a conversation one of the officials had with Mr. Zarfati fo the Ministry of Interior on November 14th 1967: The ministry continues to hand out ID cards to anyone with a note of participation in either of the two census actions taken since the Six Day War in East Jerusalem. People who were not counted and registered, and thus have no notes, are not granted ID cards at this stage. Apparently, there are thousands of them. Requests for re-unifiation of families should be submitted to Zarfati if they're in Jerusalem, or to the Military Governor if they're elsewhere in the West Bank.
Pages 3-5 are the Arabic original and the Hebrew translation of a letter by the head of the Arab Chamber of Commerce to the Minister of the Interior, Mr. Barakat. Barakat noticed the long lines and interminable hours of waiting required of people trying to pick up their new ID card, and he had all sorts of suggestions for improvements: more clerks, informing people in advance which day they should come to the office to get their ID card, and creating a separate line in a separate section of the building for women, so that they not need to stand among the men (October 30, 1967). As we saw yesterday, the Arabs of East Jerusalem took it for granted that Israeli officials either knew Arabic or would make the effort to translate their incoming mail.
Much of the file contains dozens of letters by individual Arabs explaining how come they came not to have census notes ("my wife was in the hospital that day") and requesting their ID cards. These letters were still being written in 1970. (I didn't scan this section of the file for privacy purposes.)
The part of the file which seems most significant is the attempt by Eli Amir, an official in the office, writing to his boss, the Advisor on Arab Affairs himself, Shmuel Toledano. Toledano later went on to be elected to the Knesset, while his underling, Amir, grew up to be an important novelist and public figure; in 1968, however, it's a safe bet they were both mostly unknown to the general public. On June 12, 1968, exactly a year after the unification of Jerusalem, Amir summarized the status of issuing ID cards:
The file contains three distinct types of records, all of which indeed fit under that title. The first are a few letters dealing with the practicalities of handing out Israeli ID cards to the Arabs of East Jerusalem.
On page 2 of the file we've got a handwritten summary of a conversation one of the officials had with Mr. Zarfati fo the Ministry of Interior on November 14th 1967: The ministry continues to hand out ID cards to anyone with a note of participation in either of the two census actions taken since the Six Day War in East Jerusalem. People who were not counted and registered, and thus have no notes, are not granted ID cards at this stage. Apparently, there are thousands of them. Requests for re-unifiation of families should be submitted to Zarfati if they're in Jerusalem, or to the Military Governor if they're elsewhere in the West Bank.
Pages 3-5 are the Arabic original and the Hebrew translation of a letter by the head of the Arab Chamber of Commerce to the Minister of the Interior, Mr. Barakat. Barakat noticed the long lines and interminable hours of waiting required of people trying to pick up their new ID card, and he had all sorts of suggestions for improvements: more clerks, informing people in advance which day they should come to the office to get their ID card, and creating a separate line in a separate section of the building for women, so that they not need to stand among the men (October 30, 1967). As we saw yesterday, the Arabs of East Jerusalem took it for granted that Israeli officials either knew Arabic or would make the effort to translate their incoming mail.
Much of the file contains dozens of letters by individual Arabs explaining how come they came not to have census notes ("my wife was in the hospital that day") and requesting their ID cards. These letters were still being written in 1970. (I didn't scan this section of the file for privacy purposes.)
The part of the file which seems most significant is the attempt by Eli Amir, an official in the office, writing to his boss, the Advisor on Arab Affairs himself, Shmuel Toledano. Toledano later went on to be elected to the Knesset, while his underling, Amir, grew up to be an important novelist and public figure; in 1968, however, it's a safe bet they were both mostly unknown to the general public. On June 12, 1968, exactly a year after the unification of Jerusalem, Amir summarized the status of issuing ID cards:
1. There were two census actions. The first by the Ministry of the Interior in July 1967; the second by the Municipality in September.So did Toledano sit down and write a full response to Amir? Apparently not. A month later, on August 9, 1968, Amir wrote again: We need a policy. Legitimate people are hamstrung, and also the press is sniffing around the story (p. 8). Another month passed, and on September 2 Amir wrote again: "I'm sorry for being a nag (nudnick) but we really do need a policy." On September 3, someone inserted a tiny note into the file:
2. Most people were registered in the first census, and they've been given ID cards. A small group, comprised mostly of young men, was registered but didn't request their cards. We don't know why. When they come now, almost a year later, they must give a satisfying explanation before cards are issued to them.
So far about 65,000 cards have been issued. We assume about 6,000 people have yet to request them:
a. Families. Estimated at about 5,000 people in complete family units, they were missed in the first census and identified in the second.
b. Individuals. Estimated at about 1,000, they are divided as follows:
b1. Unmarried people of all ages who live with identifed parents. They are given ID cards when they prove they live with their parents.
b2. Uncles, grandparents etc: likewise. As soon as they demonstrate that they live with registered relatives they're issued cards.
b3. Unmarried singles without registered families. They are not issued ID cards at this stage.
b4. Families with only one registered parent. Probably about 250 people, and they're issued cards.
3. The municipality counted 65,857 people. About 65,000 ID cards have already been issued, yet there are still those 6,000. So there seem to be about 71,000 Arabs in East Jerusalem. Where did the last 5,000 come from?
Three possibilities:
a. The census wasn't accurate.
b. People are infiltrating from outside Jerusalem.
c. Both of the above.
4. The East Jerusalem branch of the Ministry of the Interior reports that there continue to be new applicants. We don't know how to explain these ongoing applications - why did people wait a year? How did they live their lives for a year with no papers?
5. Conclusions:
1. There seem to be significant numbers of infiltrators.
2. Perhaps we should stop accepting new applications.
3. The groups of legitimate applicants (above) should be given ID cards.
4. A committee should be created to decide about the unclear 6,000 people: interior, police, security.
5. Assuming the committee will identify infiltrators, we need a decision as to what happens to them.
Sima in Toledano's name says the Cabinet will set up a committee.The file has nothing helpful to add.
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