Palestinian violence fuelled by frustration

The recent rise in Palestinian attacks on Israelis reflects Palestinian frustration over the restrictive regime under which they live as well as the failure of negotiations to deliver an independent state.

The involvement of east Jerusalem Palestinians in violence is particularly worrisome for Israel because they carry identity cards granting them free access to all of Israel. Palestinians living in the West Bank are confined to that territory, and Gazans are trapped in the narrow coastal strip, unable to enter or exit via Israel or Egypt.

Tuesday’s attack on a synagogue in west Jerusalem by Palestinian cousins, Uday (22) and Ghassan Abu Jamal (27), in which they killed five Israelis has been characterised as an incident in a “religious war”. However, it can alternatively be viewed as a desperate – albeit unjustified and extreme – act by young men hemmed in by Israeli restrictions and regulations designed to encourage Palestinian migration from the holy city.

This incident was preceded by three other deadly assaults on Israelis by Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem. On October 22nd, Abdel Rahman al-Shaludi (21) drove his car into Israelis leaving the light-rail train, killing a woman and her infant. On the 29th, Muataz Hijazi (32) fired at and wounded Yehuda Glick, a right-wing rabbi who seeks to build a Jewish temple on the site of the Haram al-Sharif, the mosque compound regarded as the third-holiest site in Islam.

On November 5th, Ibrahim al-Akri (38) rammed his car into pedestrians, killing one and wounding 13. These incidents belong to a "third" intifada, an "intifada of individuals" mounted by a new generation of Palestinians who regard their squabbling national organisations – particularly Fatah and Hamas – as corrupt and compromised.

There are 301,000 Palestinians in east Jerusalem, comprising 37 per cent of the city's total population, reports B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group which says Israel promotes the "expansion" of the city's Jewish population while "reducing its Palestinian population".

According to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, since 1967, Israel has revoked the Jerusalem residency of more than 14,000 Palestinians, while “tens of thousands” have left the city, settling either in the West Bank or abroad, prompting Israel to terminate Jerusalem residency.

B’Tselem says the status of east Jerusalem Palestinians is comparable to that of foreign nationals who take up residence in Israel and are treated as immigrants whose residency rights can be withdrawn at any time. Less than 3 per cent of Jerusalem Palestinians have opted for Israeli citizenship.

Since 1967, B’Tselem states Israel has expropriated one-third of Palestinian land in east Jerusalem and designated another 35 per cent as “open landscape areas” where building is banned. While thousands of permits are granted to Israelis to build in east Jerusalem, Palestinians are denied permits and homes constructed without them are bulldozed. Over the past decade, there have been 517 housing units demolished, 72 during 2013. Demolitions have left more than 2,000 people homeless, half of them minors.

Although Palestinians pay hefty taxes, there is no proper planning for their neighbourhoods, for which the Jerusalem municipality allocates only 10 per cent of its budget, says the Israeli Association for Civil Rights. Roads are badly maintained, homes are not connected to sewer networks.

Some 53 per cent of Palestinian children study in official municipal schools where there is a shortage of 2,000 classrooms. The dropout rate after secondary school is 36 per cent.

In 2014, the Palestinian poverty rate in east Jerusalem stood at 75.3 per cent, 82.2 per cent for children, states the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.

Crime and youth

The Palestinian Bureau of Statistics reports 54 per cent of Palestinian east Jerusalemites are under 24. Unemployment is rife, and the rate of drug addiction is far higher than the West Bank, states a Palestinian involved in the field.

They also say Israeli police do not make a serious effort to arrest dealers in east Jerusalem where crime is rampant.

Israel’s announcement that it will demolish the homes of Palestinian perpetrators of attacks against Israelis will not serve as a deterrent, since illegally built homes are also brought down, making such action commonplace.

Granting Israelis more gun licences could escalate violence. Easing restrictions and pressures on east Jerusalemites and improving their daily lives might reduce violence born of frustration.