via memeorandum
Thousands of Palestinians apply for Israeli citizenship
In the months leading up to the upcoming Annapolis peace conference talk of a future division of the city has prompted a staggering increase in nationalization requests by Palestinians seeking to escape life under the Palestinian Authority. Some 250,000 Palestinians currently reside in Jerusalem. Only 12,000 of them have sought to obtain an Israeli citizenship since 1967, an average of about 300 new citizens a year. But over the past four months the Interior Ministry has registered an unprecedented 3,000 applications, primarily residents of the Arab neighborhoods unlikely to remain under Israeli sovereignty according to the political initiative currently on the agenda.
This is, of course, nothing new. The BBC in August 2000 reported:
Israeli media reports today said the number of applications for citizenship had doubled in the past year to more than one-hundred and eighty. An Israeli interior ministry spokeswoman said that twelve-hundred Palestinians from east Jerusalem had been granted citizenship since it was captured by Israel in 1967.
Daniel Pipes showed that the objection Israeli Arabs to living under Palestinian Authority rule is longstanding and affects Arabs from Jerusalem and elsewhere.
Jerusalem. In mid-2000, when it appeared that some Arab-majority parts of Jerusalem would be transferred to Palestinian Authority control, Muslim Jerusalemites expressed less than delight at the prospect. Peering over at Arafat’s PA, they saw power monopolized by domineering and corrupt autocrats, a thug-like police force, and a stagnant economy. Arafat’s bloated, nonsensical claims (“We are the one true democratic oasis in the Arab region”) only exacerbated their apprehensions. ‘Abd ar-Razzaq ‘Abid of Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood pointed dubiously to “what’s happening in Ramallah, Hebron, and the Gaza Strip” and asked if the residents there were well off. A doctor applying for Israeli papers explained: The whole world seems to be talking about the future of the Arabs of Jerusalem, but no one has bothered asking us. The international community and the Israeli Left seem to take it for granted that we want to live under Mr. Arafat’s control. We don’t. Most of us despise Mr. Arafat and the cronies around him, and we want to stay in Israel. At least here I can speak my mind freely without being dumped in prison, as well as having a chance to earn an honest day’s wage. In the colorful words of one Jerusalem resident, “The hell of Israel is better than the paradise of Arafat. We know Israeli rule stinks, but sometimes we feel like Palestinian rule would be worse.”
Sounds sort of like Milton, doesn’t it?
Nor was the idea popular elsewhere.
The entrance to Umm al-Fahm, the largest Muslim town in Israel, sports the green flags of the Islamic Movement Party that rules the town, along with a billboard denouncing Israel’s rule over Jerusalem. That said, Hashim ‘Abd ar-Rahman, mayor and local leader of the Islamic Movement, has no time for Sharon’s suggestion: “Despite the discrimination and injustice faced by Arab citizens, the democracy and justice in Israel is better than the democracy and justice in Arab and Islamic countries.” Nor does Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli Arab member of parliament and advisor to Arafat, care for the idea of PA control, which he calls “a dangerous, antidemocratic suggestion.” Just 30 percent of Israel’s Arab population, a May 2001 survey found, agree to the Galilee Triangle being annexed to a future Palestinian state, meaning that a large majority prefers to remain in Israel. By February 2004, according to the Haifa-based Arab Center for Applied Social Research, that number had jumped to 90 percent preferring to remain in Israel. No less startling, 73 percent of Triangle Arabs said they would resort to violence to prevent changes in the border. Their reasons divided fairly evenly between those claiming Israel as their homeland (43 percent) and those cherishing Israel’s higher standard of living (33 percent). So intense was the Arab opposition to ceding the Galilee Triangle to the Palestinian Authority that Sharon quickly gave the idea up.
When the international community pressures Israel to make concessions on Jerusalem and Israeli leadership seems ready to oblige, why doesn’t anyone look at those who those concession are purported to help. They sure don’t seem to look forward to the development.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
Why should anyone care what they say. The terrorists running things have never paid attention to the actual people that they are attempting to rule. The Israeli leftists don’t care about Israel, why should they admit that the Arabs themselves do not want what their ideology professes to “give” them.