Article74 Magazine

In order to keep step with the government’s drive to separate “sovereign” Israel from the West Bank, the Interior Ministry has in recent weeks intensified its efforts to bureaucratically sever Palestinian Jerusalemites living outside the city. The Interior Ministry has long been a central tool in Israel’s policy of minimizing the Palestinian population of Jerusalem. Now, that Prime Minister Rabin is talking “separation” (apartheid in Afrikaans), the Interior Ministry must set its books straight and shift out those Palestinians who will maintain their rights to reside in their capital city from the rest. 

The most direct method used by Interior Ministry workers to cut off the residents is the revocation of their Jerusalem ID cards. This method is nothing new. Since Israel classifies Palestinian Jerusalemites as permanent residents, they are subject to Regulation 11 of the Law of Entry to Israel. The regulation stipulates that if permanent residents are “abroad” (including the West Bank) for seven years or more, they are liable to lose their residency rights. In the past, the Interior Ministry sometimes used this regulation to revoke Jerusalem ID cards, but even people living in Jordan or elsewhere were still able to maintain their Jerusalem residency by periodic visits to the city. 
Now Interior Ministry clerks demand proof that the person indeed resides in Jerusalem. The burden of proof continually grows heavier: arnona payments (municipal tax), electricity bills, registration of children in a Jerusalem school, and so on. If the proof does not meet the Interior Ministry’s satisfaction, the resident’s ID card is confiscated. 
The Interior Ministry’s new policy on the issue is still unclear, but recent reports indicate that they want to define who is a Jerusalem resident and who is not as soon as possible - on Israel’s terms of course. Newspapers have reported that the ministry now requires Palestinian Jerusalem residents to renew their ID cards every two years. In a recent meeting of the coalition of human rights lawyers and organizations working on the issue of family reunification and residency rights, it was reported that the village of Dahiat, on the West Bank side of what Israel currently considers the border of the Jerusalem municipality, underwent a night of ID card terror in mid-March. Residents reported that IDF soldiers entered the village, demanding to see their ID cards. The soldiers then confiscated the ID cards belonging to Jerusalem permanent residents. They told the residents that if they want their blue (Israeli) IDs back then they should move to live inside the borders of Jerusalem, if not they will receive orange (West Bank) ID cards. 
Until now members of the coalition have hesitated taking the issue to the Israeli Supreme Court for fear of a ruling that will reinforce the soldiers’ orders to the Dahiat residents - either go to Jerusalem now, or stay out forever. However, one organization - under pressure from the weight of cases of Jerusalem residents who have “lost” their ID cards - filed a petition to the court in late March. In addition the coalition decided to go to the new Interior Minister, Uzi Baram, and demand a clarification of the ministry’s policy on the issue. The feeling among the coalition is that it may be possible to bide time for Jerusalemites living in the West Bank (there are over 50,000 such residents, plus their family members), but that it will be very difficult for those living outside the country to hold on their Jerusalem ID cards. Clearly, though, the issue is a political one, and accordingly a solution will have to be brought about through political means. 
The Interior Ministry’s measures are clearly intended to define the issue of Jerusalem - and its residents - before it is due to be negotiated next year. In reaction, some Jerusalem residents have indeed been moving back into the city. This has placed even more pressure on the already airtight housing situation in East Jerusalem - the very reason why many people left the city in the first place. Others, to guarantee their rights in Jerusalem, have taken Israeli citizenship - an early victory for Israel even before the issue of the city is placed on the table.