Social and economic engineering of East Jerusalem after 1967 occupation:Policies of annexation and integration in the margins in parallel with policies of extermination and emptying
By: Dr. Walid Salem
Lecturer at Al- Quds University Master Studies Program,Editor-in-chief of Al-Maqdisiyah Journal
Submitted to: Global Tribunal on Palestine Geneva, Switzerland, 6-8 June 2024
Abstract: This paper analyzes the Israeli economic and social engineering policies for East Jerusalem by the Israeli occupation since 1967 war, with its two components, which are the gradual uprooting of a society and economy and the replacement of another society and economy in their place, within the steady expansion of East Jerusalem, the capital of the Judaized and forcibly captured State of Palestine, at the expense of the lands of the Palestinians. These policies are traced in three periods: the first in which the policies of emptying out and attaching the remaining people to the Israeli economy and institutions, separating them from Palestine society and economy, and creating a colonialized society and economy in place of economy were established and implemented. The paper shows that the measures taken after the 1967 war by the occupation were decisive in Establishing these policies, and therefore the largest space of this paper is given to this stage, in continuation of what other serious writings have focused on in other periods (Azm 2018 and 2019, and Mahfouz 2019). The second is the transition phase from annexation to the integration of East Jerusalem into the margins of Israel’s economy, since 2001, when construction of the wall began and Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem were closed. At this stage, the focus was on the economic integration of Palestinian white and blue collars into the lower locations of the Israeli labor market and the colonial and discrimination market emerging.
In the social field, the focus was on ending the disparity between the lives of the colonists in East Jerusalem and the Israelis inside Israel, at a time when dual social policies continued to be practiced against the Palestinians, including emptying out through the withdrawal of identities, subjecting the rest to Israeli institutions, and trying to distort their national identity and create the illusion of The emergence of a Jerusalemite identity separate from its Palestinian identity for some. The second period paved the way for the third to move from policies of integration on the margins to decisiveness, in one of two forms: The first continued the policies of economic and social engineering, but stipulated for decisiveness that the Jerusalemite Palestinians move from the reality of coexistence inside Jerusalem to declaring and committing to loyalty to the state and its policies. The second saw that the means of social economic engineering were not effective in subjugating the Palestinians, who would remain disloyal to Israel even if they demonstrated this. Therefore, this trend believes that the only way to deal with the Palestinians is to impose their submission to Israeli rule by force, and whoever refuses this must leave the country, or declare war and be killed. As stipulated in the broader Daniel Pipes and Bezalel Smotrich plan, which includes all Palestinians, not just Jerusalemites. In the end, the paper discusses the Palestinian responses to these Israeli engineering policies, and attempts to anticipate the future prospects of these policies in light of the outcome of the ongoing conflict on the ground.
