Occupied Jerusalem Today marks the 31st anniversary of the Oslo Accords, which were signed at the White House between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel on September 13, 1993.
The Palestinian Authority and its institutions were established immediately after the signing of the agreement, but Jerusalem was marginalized and postponed within what it called at the time “final solution issues,” which paved the way for Israel to Judaize all sectors in the occupied capital, and to kill the two-state solution that considers the eastern part of the city the capital of the State of Palestine.
The Palestinian side’s agreement to postpone Jerusalem for final status issues was conditional on the resumption of negotiations three years after the signing of the agreement, which were then called “permanent status negotiations” in order to reach a permanent settlement on who controls East Jerusalem, the holy sites, and the city’s residents.
Al-Aqsa Mosque
But Israel has spared no effort since the signing of the agreement to change the reality on the ground. It immediately began working to tighten its grip on Jerusalem and prevented any presence of the Palestinian Authority or the PLO in any institution or activity in the city.
On the 31st anniversary of the signing of the agreement, Tel Aviv Tribune Net sheds light on the most prominent issues and sectors affected by Oslo.
Jews were allowed to enter Al-Aqsa Mosque by purchasing a ticket from the Islamic Endowments Department as tourists. They were not accompanied by the occupation police to protect them, and they did not perform any rituals or Torah prayers during their presence there.
After the signing of the agreement, several agendas began to be imposed: the first in 1994 when attempts were made to control what was under the mosque, then the temporal division after obtaining a judicial order allowing settlers to storm the mosque in 2003, then the spatial division project in 2008.
Today, the situation has reached the point where settlers are performing all prayers and biblical rituals in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa, especially the eastern ones, with direct support from some officials and rabbis, headed by extremist minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who recently said that he would build a synagogue inside the mosque.
education
Jerusalem researcher Hanadi Al-Qawasmi told Tel Aviv Tribune Net that the agreement gave people hope for some independence, but it later became clear that this was nothing but an illusion, especially with regard to the city of Jerusalem, the decision on which was postponed until the so-called stages of the final solution.
“We can see some manifestations of this in the education sector in Jerusalem, because it has become the opposite of any sense of independence. Even private schools affiliated with churches or civil society organizations that previously acted and took their steps in coordination – even if only partially – with the Palestinian Ministry of Education, are now under the umbrella of the Israeli Ministry of Education and the occupation municipality, and many of them are implementing and accepting the existence of educational programs supervised directly by the ministry, with the exception of the few Waqf and UNRWA schools,” she added.
Because there is hardly a private school that is not funded by the Israeli Ministry of Education, and because the demand for this funding has led to further encroachment, many of these schools today do not dare to allow their students to bring a copy of the original, unaltered Palestinian curriculum with them to class for fear of any surprise inspection by the Israeli Ministry.
In addition to this – according to the researcher – there is a significant increase in the number of schools and kindergartens affiliated with the occupation municipality in Jerusalem, which has begun to attract more students, and many students from private schools are leaving them for these new schools, especially those specialized ones such as technological schools.
Hence, the occupation works within a vision that sees it as the primary service provider in East and West Jerusalem, and it tries to connect people and their daily needs to it and its institutions, and – in return – stifles any attempt at independence or going against this direction.
Al-Qawasmi continued, “It goes without saying that the percentage of Jerusalemites studying the Israeli curriculum is increasing every year. In the 2022-2023 academic year, their percentage was 18%, and about 10 years before that, their percentage did not exceed 2 to 3%.”
Settlement
When Jerusalem was postponed to the final solution issues, the Israeli side – according to map and settlement expert Khalil al-Tafakji, speaking to Tel Aviv Tribune Net – exploited this clause and began expanding the settlements. The first settlement to be expanded inside the city was “Har Homa.”
In 1995, a lot of land was confiscated for the expansion of settlements in the Beit Hanina and Beit Safafa areas of Jerusalem, which led to a gradual increase in the number of settlers until their number today reached 230,000 people.
In conjunction with the construction and expansion of settlements, Israel worked – according to Tafakji – to establish settlement projects, strengthen the infrastructure, and increase settlement outposts, especially around the Old City in what is known as the “Holy Basin.”
“If we look at Jerusalem in Oslo, postponing the decision on it was disastrous in all respects,” Al-Tafkji explains. “Because it gave Israel the opportunity to do whatever it wanted, to accelerate the integration of the eastern and western parts of the city, establish sovereign institutions in East Jerusalem, build tunnels, and expand settlements. Only 13% of East Jerusalem, estimated at 72 square kilometers, was left to the Palestinians, because the lands were confiscated for the public interest, classified as green areas, prohibited for construction, or due to the paving of roads and the expansion of the light rail.”
He also touched upon the fact that former US President Donald Trump’s declaration of Jerusalem as the unified capital of Israel in 2017 gave Israel more freedom to achieve its strategic goals of making Jerusalem a unified city under its sovereignty, and Judaization operations increased and accelerated.
Economy
The Oslo Accords contributed to the separation of Jerusalem from its Palestinian geographical surroundings, and this naturally led to the demise of its economy, according to former Palestinian Minister of Economy Mazen Sinqrot.
Speaking to Tel Aviv Tribune Net, Sinqrot added that the city of “Jerusalem has been further isolated after the construction of the separation wall around it, and the besieging of the gates of the Old City with a permanent military presence. This has resulted in weak purchasing power, especially in the markets of the Old City, which have closed the doors of about 450 of its 1,450 shops.”
The city’s economy was not only affected by the weak purchasing power, but also by the exhaustion of Jerusalemites with about 12 different types of taxes and fees, which makes about 80% of them live below the poverty line, according to Sinqrot.
The former minister continued that Jerusalemites are prohibited from living outside the city for fear of losing their right to reside in it. They are crowded into apartments with an average area of 40 square meters, especially in the Old City, where 12% of its residents share health services with their neighbors, and 14% share kitchens with their neighbors.
Sinqrot concluded his speech by saying that there is a huge difference in services and the economic situation between the eastern and western parts of the city due to racist policies, and that despite the financial incentives offered to settlers to encourage them to live in the city, the cost of living there for a Jerusalemite is very high, as the cost of a 100-square-meter apartment in a residential building ranges between 600 and 700 thousand dollars.