BADIL

Since February 1994, the Interior Ministry has been issuing six month renewable visas/visit permits to non-resident spouses (holders of foreign passports or West Bank/Gaza IDs) of Jerusalem residents following their application for family reunification. This new measure will hopefully provide relief to many couples who have had to live with the fear that one of the spouses would be arrested due to his/her illegal presence in Jerusalem. (With the current strict military closure of Jerusalem, illegal residence is the only option for non-resident members of Palestinian families in the city) However, this is still only a very minor measure, unable to correct even the most urgent humanitarian problems of Palestinian families in the city. The new permits are valid until the couple receives the Ministry’s answer to their application for family reunification. Since the Ministry’s traditional policy of refusing applications especially those of husbands of Jerusalem residents, has remained unchanged, all these couples will again face the choice of whether to live in the city illegally or to leave and forfeit their right to live in Jerusalem.
 

A sub-commission of the Multilateral Working Group on Refugee Affairs met in Tunis on February 7, 1994. The sub-commission attempted to reach a basic and common definition of the Palestinian family which should serve as a guideline for future decisions regarding who is eligible to return to the Palestinian autonomous territories in the framework of: family reunification; re-instatement of residency rights to persons whose ID cards were declared invalid due to prolonged absence abroad (“Lost IDs”); and in the framework of agreements regarding the return of “displaced persons” (1967 refugees).
 

Residents of the West Bank town of Bet Sahour in the south of Jerusalem have for years been trying to defend their lands in and around the Abu Ghneim mountain which, according to Israeli plans, will become another large Jewish settlement called “Har Homa neighborhood”. However, legal procedures in Israeli courts, as well as appeals to the PLO in the past have been futile. Now that the bulldozing date approaches, Bet Sahour residents are threatened by what they feel will be “another Kiryat Arba”, twice the size of Bet Sahour and right above their town.

1. To establish a public committee to supervise and promote the development of the Arab part of Jerusalem
2. To intensify diplomatic pressure together with friendly states in order to jointly pressure Israel to revoke all the illegal measures which prevent Palestinian access to Jerusalem (e.g. the military closure).
3. To transfer the headquarters of all Palestinian national institutions to East Jerusalem.
4. Jerusalem is a national and political issue which cannot be delayed or separated from the general Palestine issue.
5. To form an Islamic-Christian High Council that will work in defense of Arab Jerusalem.
6. To coordinate with the owners of property in Jerusalem, especially with the Waqf for the renovation of buildings and the optimal use of their property.
7. To call for an international conference on the city of Jerusalem organized by experts from inside and outside of Palestine.
8. To establish a research institution supervised by an academic committee to follow up the situation in Arab Jerusalem.
9. The Palestinian Council for Housing must work for the establishment of housing units in East Jerusalem and encourage Palestinians to live in them.
10. To demand permission for private housing construction in East Jerusalem and the cancellation of all “green land areas” from the Israeli town plans.
11. To offer loans and grants to Palestinian Jerusalemites in order to enable them to build their homes.
12. To integrate the issue of Jerusalem in the curricula of Palestinian educational institutions.