Middle East
ISRAEL
They Can't Go Home
The case of a traveling Palestinian academic who was stripped of his residency rights in Jerusalem has turned the spotlight on Israel's use of pernicious administrative tactics to expel Arab residents from the city, writes Bernard Wasserstein in the independent daily Jerusalem Post.
Musa Budeiri, a professor at Al-Quds University, was recently informed by the Ministry of the Interior that his Jerusalem residency permit was being revoked and that he would be required to leave the city by August 22. Officials argued that Budeiri had forfeited his residence rights because of lengthy stays abroad while a visiting scholar at a number of universities in the United States and Europe. The action came just one day after incoming Interior Minister Natan Sharansky announced that he would end the policy of "quiet transfers "-administrative actions used to strip Palestinian Jerusalemites of their residency rights.
The Budeiri case is perhaps the most high-profile example of a practice that has displaced scores of Arab residents from Jerusalem.
The quiet transfers, writes David Newman, a columnist for the Jerusalem Post, are part of an Israeli policy to "ensure the continued Jewish demographic majority in the city." According to Newman, Israeli leaders believe the demographic battle will "have a major impact on the question of permanent control over Jerusalem."
Newman adds: "It is time that we understood that discrimination in this way cannot be used as a means to achieve political objectives."
