The Jerusalem Post Wednesday, August 4, 1999

By DAVID NEWMAN

The decision concerning the residency rights of Palestinian academic, Dr. Musa Budeiri, has wide-reaching implications, way beyond the status of this particular individual. While Budeiri's case has received much media attention (such as yesterday's op-ed by Bernard Wasserstein, "Nash Kotrol" in this paper), there are thousands of other Palestinians in a similar situation who do not share his academic or international connections ready to make a public protest.

The residency rights policy is aimed at preventing Budeiri, and the many others like him, from enjoying full citizenship status in east Jerusalem. The political rationale is self evident. The government is interested in reducing, as much as possible, the number of permanent Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem. It is part of the ongoing battle for demographic hegemony in the city and will, so Israeli policymakers believe, have a major impact on the ques tion of permanent control over Jerusalem.

In the early 1990s, discussions concerning the expansion of Jerusalem\rquote s municipal boundaries took into account the possible inclusion of the suburb of Mevasseret Zion while, at the same time, excluding the possibili ty of annexing the neighboring communities of Abu Gosh (Arab residents) and Kiryat Ye' arim (haredi residents). The aim was to construct a demographic composition of the city which would have obvious political benefits for the state in its attempt to retain Israeli sovereignty and control over the whole city.

The recent decision (not yet implemented) by the previous government to expand the municipal limits to include Ma' aleh Adumim, is but one more act aimed at achieving this form of long-term political control.

It is one of the paradoxes of government policy that the government continually declares the fact that Jerusalem is a united city under Israeli sovereignty, forever to remain the capital of the Jewish state. As part of this policy, the state always reminds the international community that, unlike residents of the West Bank, the residents of east Jerusalem have been offered full Israeli citizenship. But these same citizens do not vote in national elections (only in municipal elections) and, as has been shown by the Budeiri and similar cases, do not share an automatic right of residence, even when they were born in the city itself. Contrast this to the rights of a Jewish immigrant who was born outside Israel and has exercised his/her right under the Law of Return to come and live in Israel. This same person receives automatic citizenship and voting rights and, in most cases, economic benefits of which even other Israel citizens do not benefit.

Thousands of Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem have been prevented from retaining their residency status in east Jerusalem because of a prolonged absence from the city. Their identity cards have been taken away from them in a process which has been described as a "quiet transfer" of citizens in order to ensure the continued Jewish demographic majority in the city. This policy is in direct contradiction to the basic human rights which every citizen, especially those born in a specific location, should expect to receive from the state. It holds Israel's claim to equality before the law to ridicule and, rather than strengthening them, puts into question Israel's claims to sovereignty over the whole of the city. Consider too, even for a moment, what would happen if the rights of a Jewish citizen were removed because he/she decided to spend much of their time travelling for professional reasons. There are hundreds of thousands of Israeli residing abroad at this very moment who would be negatively affected by such a move.

Given the very nature of the State of Israel, this is not going to happen, and it is time that we understood that discrimination in this way cannot be used as a means to achieve political objectives aimed at reducing the size of the east Jerusalem Palestinian population. Sharansky, more than any other Israeli politician, should understand what it means to have one\rquote s basic rights of citizenship and residency removed. To his credit, he has made some early statements to indicate that this policy will be reviewed during the coming months, but a decision to undertake changes has not yet been made.

It is essential that this review be carried out within the space of weeks or months, not years, and that the basic human rights component, around which Sharansky\rquote s own struggle was focused, be uppermost in the policy makers minds. It is time to enact a new policy which will reverse the discrimination of the past, enabling all Palestinians to enjoy the basic rights to residency within the city in which they, or their spouses, were born. This is no more than the minimum to be expected from a country which prides itself on its democracy.