Jewish-Arab Coexistence in Jerusalem and Local Elections
Nadav Shragai,
Jerusalem Issue Briefs Vol. 18, No. 3 February 21, 2018
Institute for Contemporary Affairs

Founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation


-A new survey, conducted by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion among
the Arabs of east Jerusalem, indicates an increasing desire among the city’s
Arab population to participate in upcoming municipal elections.
-The results of the survey give a different message from the usual narrative
presented by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority and show a growing trend
among the Arabs of east Jerusalem towards “Israelization.”
-However, the growing trend towards coexistence between Jewish and Arab
residents after a half a century of living in a united city is not
necessarily a love story. What drives the trend toward coexistence? And will
the Arabs of east Jerusalem actually turn out to vote in the municipal
elections in October?

A comprehensive survey conducted by the Palestinian Center for Public
Opinion among the Arabs of east Jerusalem1 shows that around 60 percent of
east Jerusalem’s residents believe they should participate in Jerusalem
municipality elections taking place in October 2018, thereby having an
effect on policies from within. After many years of boycotting the
elections, east Jerusalem’s Arabs believe that the time has come to play
their part in the “municipal game.”

The survey’s results are not surprising. They show a continued and even
growing trend toward “Israelization” among many east Jerusalem Arabs as a
consequence of living in a unified city for the past 50 years. The image of
a divided city is apparently fading away and disappearing from the memory of
those still living there today.

The Disconnect between Local and National Arenas

The results of the survey also reveal how strong the interest created by
this reality has become. The aspiration toward the equalization of services
and infrastructure between the eastern and western parts of the city through
having an influence on the municipality is, according to the results of the
survey, stronger than the Palestinian national narrative regarding Jerusalem
that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas present. Both of these bodies
consider any cooperation with Israel – and with Jerusalem in particular – as
a “betrayal” of their “higher purpose” of “establishing the capital of the
Palestinian state in east Jerusalem.”

The survey shows that a considerable number of east Jerusalem residents are
prepared to put this “higher purpose” to one side. They are ready to
disconnect and differentiate between the local, municipal arena and
Palestinian national goals, which don’t appear to be attainable at this
time. An increasing number of citizens in east Jerusalem now believe that
the way to receive city funding – which for many years has mostly been
allocated to the western half of the city – is through having a political
influence upon the city council.

A completely separate question is whether this trend, which has grown
stronger over the years, will translate on Election Day into voting en masse
by the Arabs of east Jerusalem at the polls. The answer is: not necessarily.
The Palestinian Authority and Hamas have already announced that they are
opposed to participation in municipal elections. Past experience has shown
that this doesn’t only refer to verbal opposition.

On previous occasions, the Arab population that sought to participate in
local elections, as well as public figures among the Arabs of east Jerusalem
wanting to run for office in the city council, were threatened. Some of them
were even physically harmed as a result of violence and terror carried out
by Hamas or Fatah operatives. For example, when Hanna Siniora, former
editor-in-chief of al-Fajr, wanted to run for the city council, two of his
cars were set on fire.

Terror Overcomes the Voters

Local initiatives organized in Beit Safafa and Sur Baher suffered the same
fate. During earlier elections, at least once (in 1969), terror
organizations managed to torpedo any significant participation by east
Jerusalem Arabs and the running of Arab lists in municipal polls. Only a low
percentage of those with the right to vote in the eastern part of the city
went to the polls. Terror won out. The small voter turnout expressed a
Palestinian nationalist message regarding formal recognition of the Israeli
government and actual unification of the city. Israel, from its point of
view, did not succeed or manage to create a sense of security that allowed
many residents of east Jerusalem wishing to vote to participate in the
elections. The threat was far too tangible.

This time, there are also some figures who want to run in the elections to
the city council. The electoral potential of over 300,000 Arabs in east
Jerusalem, currently forming around 40 percent of the city’s population, is
extremely high: at least one-third of the members of the city council. Due
to the status of permanent residents that they received immediately after
the Six-Day War, east Jerusalem’s Arabs are entitled to vote in city council
elections (though not in Knesset elections). However, after so many years of
boycotting, the likelihood of this potential being fully or significantly
realized at any significant level is still very low. On the other hand, the
possibility that several thousand or even tens of thousands of east
Jerusalem Arabs may participate in the elections is much higher, even if it
is not certain. Everything depends on the levels of threats and the
protection that Israel will provide to those seeking to vote or run in the
elections.

Nine months before the upcoming Jerusalem city council elections, there are
already two initial candidates, though it is not clear whether they will
manage to overcome the threats of Palestinian violence and terror. One of
these is Dr. Ramadan Dabash, leader of the Sur Baher community council, who
has announced his intention to run for the municipality. The second is Iyad
Bibuch, a teacher from Shuafat, who is trying to form an east Jerusalem
political party. The common factor between both of these candidates, similar
to previous initiatives that foundered before their time, is their
aspiration to bypass the political conflict regarding the city’s future in
order to concentrate on municipal activity and a concern for the welfare of
the residents of east Jerusalem, which has been seriously neglected.

“Coexistence” and a Shared Fabric of Life

The candidates’ basic assumptions and those of their observers may be a
little different this time. Following the elections, the representation of
the residents of east Jerusalem on the city council will depend upon two
main factors: necessity and reality. Much has been written about necessity.
There are vast gaps in the levels of services and infrastructure between the
Jewish and Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem within almost every parameter:
roads, sidewalks, the sewage system, water, education, and more. In recent
years, there have been attempts to redress the mistakes of the past and to
allocate more funding to east Jerusalem. However, the discrepancies are
still very large, and it will take a long time to change the situation there
significantly.

This is the case regarding necessity. In terms of reality, though, it has
led to the Israelization of many Arabs in east Jerusalem. Even without the
elections, Israelization is the upshot of living together in a united city,
alongside a Jewish population, for the past 50 years. A decisive majority of
Jerusalem’s population, Jewish as well as Arab, don’t remember a divided
city. Around 85 percent of Jerusalem’s Arabs and 75 percent of the city’s
Jews were born within the reality of a unified city. For them, the days when
it was divided are a chapter of distant history. They grew up in a single
city without any divisions or borders.

This detail has been translated into the fabric of a normal coexistence that
is a blend of different lifestyles. While there is a national and religious
struggle, Jerusalem’s residents still live side by side. Shared aspects of
life include Jewish and Arab doctors and nurses, working together to serve
both populations in the city’s hospitals and also at the branches of the
various health funds. There is also a shared pharmaceutical system. Arab
and Jewish drivers both work within the Egged cooperative and drive the city’s
taxis and private buses. Of course, there is also a joint community of
passengers. Jews and Arabs mix at Jerusalem’s various leisure spots,
including restaurants, cafes, and shopping malls. In all of these places,
there is a large pool of Jewish and Arab consumers, as well as Jewish and
Arab employees. Parts of the city are also connected through joint
infrastructures. Services are provided to all areas of the city, including
water, sewage, electricity, and telephones, as well as a shared system of
arterial and secondary roads, crossing Jerusalem both lengthwise and
widthwise.

Despite all the tensions, the national-religious conflict, and terror, Jews
visit all of the four quarters of the Old City, where they shop and walk
around. Arabs visit the western parts of the city, mostly for work, leisure,
and shopping. The boundaries between neighborhoods are simultaneously a site
of tension and conflict and a meeting place for commercial activity,
tourism, and shared necessities created by mutual interests. The most
outstanding expression of this coexistence is the light railway, which
serves hundreds of thousands of Jews and tens of thousands of Arabs. It
defies the ongoing attempts of the enemies of normalization, the terror
organizations, to harm it. The train passes through Jewish neighborhoods and
also the Arab neighborhoods of Shuafat and Beit Hanina. Additional light
railway lines planned for the future will also pass through both Jewish and
Arab residential areas.

Another aspect of “Israelization” relates to the fields of education and
university studies. An increasing number of young Arabs want to study at
Israeli academic institutions. To achieve this, they need to pass Israeli
bagrut [matriculation] exams. Learning centers in east Jerusalem prepare
these young people for Israeli bagrut exams. A growing number of families in
east Jerusalem are currently choosing to send their children to study at
schools where they follow the Israeli curriculum. This number of children
has reached 5,500, as compared to less than 1,000 only a few years ago.2 The
proportion of students following the Israeli curriculum among the total of
students in east Jerusalem may still be very small, but this is a gradual
rise, symptomatic of an increasing trend.

These kinds of ‘blending’ are naturally created by a shared economy and a
level of codependence. Within various industrial sectors, the comparative
proportion of employees from the eastern part of the city forms the main
workforce with regard to size and importance to the city’s economy.3
Workers from the eastern part of the city are 66 percent of employees in
construction, 52 percent of those employed in transportation, 38 percent of
those working in the hotel and food industry, 32 percent of workers in the
industrial sector, and 21 percent of those employed in health and welfare.
The livelihood of the residents of east Jerusalem depends on their employers
from the west, and the business of west Jerusalem’s employers depends on
their workers from the east.

A Different Identity

The different identity of the Arabs of east Jerusalem, which sets them apart
from the residents of the West Bank, is affected by all of the above. This
identity is also affected by their permanent resident status and the
establishment of the security fence.

The fence, which was erected 15 years ago, has compelled Palestinian
residents of east Jerusalem (apart from the northern neighborhoods that have
remained outside its border) to change direction and turn west. It has also
contributed to the strengthening of this blending process and the fabric of
normalization.

Other researchers have also seen evidence of blending and normalization.
Seven years ago, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy conducted an
in-depth survey among the Arabs of east Jerusalem.4 It found that 35
percent preferred to live as citizens with equal rights under Israeli
sovereignty in Jerusalem. Three years ago, in June 2015, an additional
survey by the Washington Institute revealed that this number had increased.5
On the date when the latest survey was taken in the neighborhoods of east
Jerusalem, the proportion of residents who stated outright that they
preferred to live as Israeli citizens with equal rights under Israeli
sovereignty had reached 52 percent.

Coexistence in Jerusalem has therefore defied political formulas more than
once. This is not a love story, but a story of shared interests and
recognizing reality, public benefit, profitability, economics, and earning a
living. In the existing Jerusalem reality, coexistence has not turned the
Arabs of east Jerusalem into friends. It does not negate terror or
hostility, but it exists alongside them. To what extent will it lead the
Arabs of east Jerusalem to the polls in October? This question still remains
open. What is clear is that the desire for this to happen exists. Whether
the conditions for this to occur will be created still remains to be seen.

* * *

Notes


1 Nir Hasson, Haaretz, February 12, 2018, “Despite Official Boycott, Over
Half of East Jerusalem’s Palestinians Want to Vote in City Elections,”
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/.premium-over-half-of-east-jerusalem-palestinians-want-vote-in-city-elections-1.5823058.
From poll prepared for Hebrew University following U.S. recognition of
Jerusalem as capital of Israel.

2 Yarden Zur and Nir Hasson, Haaretz, September 1, 2017, “Israeli Kids Head
Back to School; Uptick in Palestinians Studying for Israeli End Exams,”
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/hundreds-of-thousands-of-israeli-kids-head-back-to-school-1.5447511

3 Marik Shtern, the Jerusalem Institute of Policy Research.
http://en.jerusaleminstitute.org.il/

4 Washington Institute survey, 2011 – David Pollock,
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/what-do-the-arabs-of-east-jerusalem-really-want

5 Washington Institute survey, 2015 – David Pollock,
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/half-of-jerusalems-palestinians-would-prefer-israeli-to-palestinian-citizen


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Nadav Shragai

Nadav Shragai is a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public
Affairs. He served as a journalist and commentator at Ha’aretz between 1983
and 2009, is currently a journalist and commentator at Israel Hayom, and has
documented the dispute over Jerusalem for thirty years. His books include:
Jerusalem: Delusions of Division (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs,
2015); The “Al-Aksa Is in Danger” Libel: The History of a Lie (Jerusalem
Center for Public Affairs, 2012); the ebook Jerusalem: Correcting the
International Discourse – How the West Gets Jerusalem Wrong (Jerusalem
Center for Public Affairs, 2012); At the Crossroads: The Story of Rachel’s
Tomb (Gates for Jerusalem Studies, 2005); The Temple Mount Conflict (Keter,
1995); and the essay: “Jerusalem Is Not the Problem, It Is the Solution,” in
Mr. Prime Minister: Jerusalem, Moshe Amirav, ed. (Carmel and Florsheimer
Institute, 2005).