Afrasianet - Ahmed Abu Al-Haija - Israel is leading an open war with all its civil and security arms to replace the Palestinian civil space in the city of Jerusalem, a war that is carried out with both visible and invisible tools that have strong and shocking effects, and has one goal, which is to hollow the Palestinian civil space in Jerusalem and its family.
The Israeli state apparatus has been alerted to the fact that the civil space is an essential component in the steadfastness of Jerusalemites, whether in terms of preserving their identity or providing services, so they have broken all the rules in dealing with it and exceeded the Israeli laws in force, and even the workers of the civil society institutions in Jerusalem have become persecuted in the streets.
If you walk in the street – as a Jerusalemite – you are at risk of being blocked by an intelligence officer in civilian clothes and asking you for your laptop without a prosecutor's permission or a judicial warrant, and sometimes the workers in the NGOs deceive you by not carrying their computers with them, so the officer asks to return to the car or house and bring it, and once there is a picture of the Palestinian flag it is considered a problem, let alone if there are other national materials.
This kind of prosecution in the West Bank has not occurred , suggesting a very high level of security tightening.
Laws, Restrictions and Procedures
Another important problem related to this is the protection of the archives of these institutions, both in terms of the documented historical legacy of their work and the city of Jerusalem, some of which extends to decades and sometimes before the establishment of the State of Israel, in addition to protecting the privacy of the data of the target groups of these institutions and their correspondence.
The Israeli government has taken a series of multi-sectoral measures:
• On the legal level, the Israeli Knesset approved in the first reading a draft law obliging Jerusalem NGOs to pay income tax of up to 80% of the value of any foreign grant they receive, which is an impossibly unimaginable decision, but the pressure of Arab MPs in the Knesset stopped the decision, and the percentage was reduced to 20%, which is also high and unacceptable. This highlights that the city of Jerusalem has its own racist laws that detail the purposes of displacing Jerusalemites and striking at their institutions.
• This is in parallel with the blows and restrictions on the Islamic and Christian endowment institutions, which are a vital artery for civil institutions and civic space in Jerusalem, in addition to the fact that, in particular, the Jerusalem church institutions are a major source of funding for many Jerusalem civil institutions, some of which have been banned from operating in more than 50 international institutions that have recently been suspended from operating in the Gaza Strip due to their non-compliance with the unacceptable Israeli registration requirements. This means that the damage that has been exposed in the media directed at the Gaza Strip has an impact on the city of the same level Jerusalem without anyone noticing it.
450 Jerusalem NGOs
In the Jerusalem Governorate, which includes the city of Jerusalem and its suburbs, there are about 450 Jerusalem NGOs, and they represent a vibrant world, volunteering and services, working in all fields, and following the main Islamic and Christian schools, in addition to the prestigious hospitals such as Al-Makassed Hospital, which represent the Palestinian identity in Jerusalem from the institutional and societal aspects.
It is worth mentioning here that the war on Palestinian education in Jerusalem began years ago and Israel has already succeeded in eliminating Palestinian education in Al-Madima, and Israelization of education with measures and restrictions that are difficult to confront, for example, today only about 6,000 Jerusalem students remain in the Awqaf schools in Jerusalem, and the rest are enrolled in schools affiliated with Israeli knowledge.
It seems that the Israeli decision is clear and decisive with regard to the integration of all these Jerusalem institutions into the Israeli system and the imposition of the concept of sovereignty on them, as until recently, some of these institutions held two licenses, one Palestinian and the other Israeli, and some of them operated with a Palestinian license only, but now no institution does not hold an Israeli license, which has made many of them without a recognized legal registration.
Real estate leakage and suspension of permits
According to Israeli law, when any institution is closed, its property is confiscated and transferred to the state, and therefore there is an Israeli interest in closing and withdrawing the legitimacy of the largest number of Jerusalem institutions, especially those that have assets and real estate to seize.
Israel has also suspended entry permits between the West Bank and Jerusalem, preventing many employees of Jerusalem NGOs from accessing them, thus depriving Jerusalem NGOs of some of their staff.
The matter was further complicated by the decision to cut off the relationship between Palestinian banks in the West Bank and Jerusalem, which means forcing Jerusalem institutions to deal only with Israeli banks with all their complexities, and this is often not possible, leaving the institution without a bank account and losing its ability to raise funding.
A clear methodological plan
Israel is working with a clear systematic plan to strike at the heads of Palestinian representatives and national references in Jerusalem by striking these institutions, as it works in parallel with the pursuit of Palestinian NGOs in them to establish other civil institutions based on Jerusalemites affiliated with them, and so far between 15-20 new NGOs have been established in Jerusalem through their tails, to work on the gradual replacement of the alternative of the national leadership of Jerusalem to NGOs, in addition to replacing the so-called "community centers" to provide the services provided by the institutions Al-Ahliyya Al-Qudsiya.
The tax war is part of the war directed at Jerusalem's civil institutions, including the reclassification of property taxes in Jerusalem (the tax on roofs and property), where the Jerusalem Municipality resurveys all Jerusalem neighborhoods, takes accurate measurements, and reestimates the value of the tax with a deliberately and clearly high amount in order to burden Jerusalemites and their institutions financially and force them to abandon them.
In this context, Jerusalem NGOs are targeted by treating a large part of them as commercial activity rather than voluntary civil society, as every NGO that does not provide health or education services directly is converted to a commercial company classification with regard to the Arnona tax, and this raises the value of the Arnona tax from an average of NIS 7,000 (the dollar equals NIS 3.07) to 50,000, which is beyond the capacity of NGOs to close their doors.
The ongoing war of extermination in the Gaza Strip should not lead to oblivion to what is happening in the city of Jerusalem
The ongoing war of extermination in the Gaza Strip should not lead to ignorance of similar genocide in the city of Jerusalem with various soft tools.
What is happening in Jerusalem is not an internal Palestinian affair, or a procedural event like what is happening in the cities of the West Bank, because this city, with its status and significance, requires a conscious Arab, Islamic and international effort to protect its components of Jerusalem.
It is not a sin and not a mistake to be content with observation and verbal solidarity with what is happening in it, because sometimes it is possible through intelligent, directed, and fruitful action to delay the crisis and reduce its repercussions if it cannot be stopped.
