Jerusalem bookshop was ordered to leave: Israel steps up expulsions

By Jonathan Cook-Jerusalem
 
Munther Fahmi is known as a bookseller in Jerusalem. Among his customers are to be found Tony Blair, Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter and Hollywood actress Uma Thurman.
In a city torn by political and social tensions, has Mr Fahmi bookstore where an oasis of dialogue between the Palestinians and isrælere, with known authors and academics from both sides of the divide is regularly invited to give readings and talk about their work.
But despite his high-profile connections, Mr Fahmi days in the city of his birth see numbered.
Isrælske officials have told him that after 16 years running his Bookstore in the recitals in the preamble to East Jerusalem landmark 19th-century hotel the American colony, he is no longer welcome in Israel or in Jerusalem.

Two months ago he exhausted his legal options when Isræls the Supreme Court refused to overturn the deportation order. His only hope now rests with a governmental Committee, which he has appealed for humanitarian reasons.
Mr Fahmi, 57, is far from optimistic. "My attorney tells me programs from the Palestinians accepted almost never."
The holder of an American passport in many years, Mr Fahmi said he is staying on a tourist visa, which expired on 3. April. "If the Committee rejects my case, I will be sent packing on a surface with very short notice."
Mr Fahmi is one of thousands of Palestinians in the last four decades has fallen foul of a isrælsk policy, stripping them of their right to live in Jerusalem, said Dalia Kerstein, Director of Hamoked, a isrælsk human rights group.
Although Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967, in breach of international law, most of its Palestinian population received only isrælske residence permit allows, not citizenship.
According to isrælske figures, has more than 13,000 Palestinians--from a current population of 260,000 in East Jerusalem--had their residence permits revoked since then.
MS Kerstein said the number of withdrawals had increased considerably in recent years, with more than 4,500 Palestinians losing residence permit in 2008 alone last year which complete figures are available.
Isrælsk law stipulates that Palestinians in Jerusalem can be deprived of a residence permit if they spent at least seven years abroad--defined as including the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza--or acquired a foreign passport.
Since a test case in 1988, has the isrælske courts supported withdrawals in cases where the authorities say the Palestinians have transferred their "Centre of life" elsewhere.
"There is clearly a policy to push the Palestinians out of Jerusalem and Israel to reduce what is called here ' Palestinian demographic threat '," said Ms Kerstein. "It's really a case of ethnic cleansing".
Last week, Hamoked and another human rights group, Association of civil rights in Israel (Acri), petitoned Isræls Supreme Court to overturn policy, claimed that it is contrary to international law.
Eve For, a lawyer for Acri, said Palestinians in East Jerusalem was effectively "prisoners", punishable by Israel if they participated in a more globalised world.
"The Problem for people like Munther is that the isrælske Government and courts treat them as if they are immigrants, ignore, as the town's original inhabitants have an inalienable right to live here," Ms Kerstein said.
Like most other Palestinians in East Jerusalem decreased Mr Fahmi family isrælske citizenship in 1967. "We are the Palestinians and Israel concern us. Why would we take citizenship and give a stamp of legitimacy to our occupation? "
But the decision left him and other Palestinians in Jerusalem in a precarious position.
Mr Fahmi residence permit was revoked--without his knowledge--a long period of time spent in the United States, beginning in 1975, when he left to study. He made his American passport after marrying there and raise a family.
He decided to settle back in Jerusalem in 1995, after the signing of the Oslo accords. "I had seen Yasser Arafat [the Palestinian leader] and Yitzhak Rabin [Isræls prime minister] shake hands at the White House. Naively, I trøde it heralded a new era of reconciliation. "
The last 16 years, he has been forced to exit and enter the country every couple of months on a tourist visa.
But Mr Fahmi learned of his loss of residence permit full meaning 18 months ago when Interior Ministry officials told him that, according to a new policy, he will no longer automatically be issued tourist visas.
Now, can he he has told to spend only three months per year in Israel, including Jerusalem. He has said in his appeal to the humanitarian Committee, he must be in Jerusalem to take care of his 76-year-old mother.
"There are other countries where the indigenous population is treated like this in its home country?" he said.
Policy to withhold tourist visas to Palestinians with foreign passports have only imperfectly implemented, said Ms Kerstein, followed objections from us and European embassies.
Mr Fahmi appeared a surprising choice for enforcement, given its influential supporters. A petition has attracted more than 2,000 signatures, including the British author Ian McEwan, who won this year's Jerusalem Prize for literature, historian Eric Hobsbawn and Simon Sebag Montefiore, if book Jerusalem: The Biography has become a bestseller.
Mr Fahmi hope backup from the many isrælere and diaspora Jews, including Isræls two most famous novelists, Amos Oz and David Grossman, prevent his expulsion.
' I hope the authorities will take note of the fact that many of my supporters are people who describe themselves as friends of Israel, "he said.
Mr Grossman told the News Agency last week that the isrælske Government's actions were "a disgrace".
Rashid Khalidi, professor of Middle East history at Columbia University in New York that the petition has also signed, said Mr Fahmi case featured Isræls determination to maintain a clear Jewish majority in Jerusalem.
A formula devised by a Committee, isrælske Government in 1973 fixed percentage ratio of isrælske Jews to the Palestinians in the city of 73 to 27. Despite an aggressive policy of settling Jews in East Jerusalem have higher birth rates among Palestinians seen their share of the swell to a little over a third of the city's total population.
"There is not a family I know in East Jerusalem, which has no affected by this recall policy," said Prof. Khalidi. "It is systematic.
Last year Israel seemed to extend the policy when it revoked the residence permit of four Hamas members of the Palestinian Legislative Council who live in East Jerusalem.
Earlier this year also it shall be prohibited from Jerusalem Adnan Gheith, a prominent Palestinian political activist, who has been against a Jewish settlement drive in his Silwan neighbourhood of East Jerusalem. He was ordered to keep out of the city in four months.
Reports in the isrælske media suggest that Isræls security service has prepared a list of several hundred activists in Jerusalem, which they want issued with expulsion orders.
In an indication of fear among Palestinians in East Jerusalem, as their residency rights are threatened, have isrælske officials noticed a marked increase in Palestinians applying for isrælske citizenship in the past five years.
The figures showed in the years from isrælske Interior Ministry that approximately 13,000 Jerusalem Palestinians or 5% of the population, now isrælske citizens.
-Jonathan Cook is an author and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are "Israel and the clash of civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the plan to reshape the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Isræls experiments in human despair" (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. A version of this article originally appeared in the national-www.thenational.ae-published in Abu Dhabi.