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A six per cent democracy
The hollowness of Israel's commitment to free, fair elections
was exposed in East Jerusalem yesterday
By Hind Khoury
01/26/06 "The
Guardian" -- -- Yesterday just over 6% of the
Palestinian electorate in occupied East Jerusalem were granted
the opportunity to vote in their city in the second Palestinian
parliamentary elections - a total of 6,300 out of a population
of nearly a quarter of a million (including children). Yet even
the lucky 6,300 - the number permitted by Israel to vote is
entirely arbitrary - faced a campaign of intimidation to
discourage voting.
Israel tried to score points internationally by allowing
elections in East Jerusalem, while trying to choke the life out
of them. As well as severely restricting the number of
Palestinians allowed to vote, Israel photocopied registration
lists. A refusal to give a previously issued letter of
assurances that voting would not affect residency and other
rights added to the atmosphere of fear.
International discussion about these elections has been almost
exclusively about Hamas, a welcome distraction for Israel from
the suppression of the democratic rights of the Palestinians of
Jerusalem. In the past two years, Israel has surrounded its
settlements in East Jerusalem with an 8m-high concrete wall,
cutting off the Palestinian city from its hinterland in the West
Bank. Ramallah and Bethlehem - once suburbs of East Jerusalem -
are now as remote as foreign countries on the other side of
international-border-style crossings.
The 94% of Palestinian Jerusalemites barred from voting in their
city have to travel to the other side of Israel's wall to vote,
passing barbed-wire fences and the nervous teenagers armed to
the teeth at Israeli checkpoints. Israel knew few Palestinian
Jerusalemites would choose to spend an entire day on this
arduous journey, and was thereby trying to deprive almost the
entire Jerusalem electorate of its democratic right to vote.
In order to create the fiction that Jerusalemites were
participating in elections from "abroad", those Palestinians
permitted to cast their votes in their own city had to do so in
post offices. Last year, Palestinian negotiators tried to open
talks on expanding the Jerusalem voting arrangements to include
the entire electorate. Israel ignored their requests until the
last minute, despite its obligation under the Road Map to
facilitate "free, fair and open" Palestinian elections. Under
international pressure, the two parties sat down to discuss
arrangements a week into the three-week campaigning period. In
few democratic societies would election experts and lawyers be
negotiating the right to campaign with secret policemen and
soldiers. Such is the absurdity of building Palestinian
democracy under the boot of Israeli occupation.
So arrangements fell into place at the last moment after many
Palestinians had been arrested for crimes such as putting up an
election poster or attending a rally. The west tells us we must
reform and build democracy - what has taken place is the best
possible campaign material for those opposed to a negotiated
solution.
Occupied East Jerusalem has the same legal status as Jenin, in
the West Bank. East Jerusalem is not "disputed territory", it is
illegally controlled and occupied by an Israeli state that
claims the Palestinian half of the city as Israeli.
Israel wins nothing from its tactics of intimidation and
obstructionism. By 3pm yesterday, 100 Palestinians had voted at
Jaffa Gate: nearly six times more than in presidential elections
last year, when Israel mixed up voter lists. Yet if only one had
voted, that individual would alone have represented the fact
that East Jerusalem remains Palestinian.
Nor will Israel's scorn for Palestinian democracy serve its
interest in peace and security. There is only one way to end the
conflict and that is to negotiate a just solution based on
international law.
Hind Khoury is the Palestinian Authority's minister of state for
Jerusalem Affairs - www.nad-plo.org
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
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