The New York Times · New York, New York · 12 June 1997

CP-1997-022

Israel Says Arabs Born in Jerusalem Are Aliens

By Joel Greenberg

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Transcribed from the clipping

JERUSALEM, June 11 — Rihab Essawi went to the Israeli Interior Ministry office in East Jerusalem recently to get what she thought would be a routine travel permit for a visit abroad.

Like all Palestinians from East Jerusalem, she had an Israeli identification card, which she presented along with an American passport that she got after studying a few years in the United States. “The clerk took my card and told me to wait,” Mrs. Essawi recalled.

“He came back 15 minutes later and told me: ‘Your residence here has expired because you have American citizenship. You have to leave the country.’ I asked: ‘How long do I have? I have a husband here, and a house.’ He said, ‘Fifteen days.’ ” Mrs.

Essawi, a 47-year-old educator, suddenly found herself an illegal alien in her hometown. She is one of more than 1,000 East Jerusalem Arabs and their relatives whose residency permits have been revoked in the last year and a half. The revocations have accelerated in recent months.

Palestinians and human rights groups say the policy is intended to reduce the Arab population of the city as negotiations on its final status draw near. The United States has been urging Israel to ease up on the policy, as a concession to Arab feelings that might help restart the peace talks.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted recently that the policy might change, but so far the revocations have continued. Israeli officials have long insisted that they are only enforcing the law, and deny any intention of ousting Jerusalem’s 180,000 Arabs.

The revocation of 1,000 residence permits does not mean that many people have left, since many stay on as illegal aliens. But their lives are far more difficult, and they could be expelled if Israel decided to crack down. The 1,000 Arabs whose residency rights were revoked either lived several years outside Jerusalem or had accepted foreign citizenship.

The status of Jerusalem’s Arab population has become part of the struggle over the future of the city, which is perhaps the most difficult issue dividing Israelis and Palestinians. Their talks have stalled since the Israelis began work in March on a new Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim as the capital of their hoped-for state.

Israel asserts that all Jerusalem will remain its undivided capital.

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