Jerusalem Palestinians face no-win housing problem

Jerusalem Palestinians have long lived with the fear that Israel can demolish their houses. Adding insult to injury, some face a lose-lose choice - destroy your home yourself or pay the city to do it.

It is one of the twists to a years-old predicament facing the Palestinians - finding it nearly impossible to get building permits, they construct houses or additions without them and then live under the threat of demolition.

Such was the case for Fatima and Mohammed Ghosheh who, with four growing children, built two rooms and a bathroom in place of the terrace where they used to keep pigeons in their house in the Muslim quarter in the Old City.

"The children grew up and needed to have space," says Fatima, 28.

They had applied for a building permit, but had no luck.

"We asked for a building permit, but these are systematically denied the Palestinians," she says.

A year ago, officials from city hall came to inform them that the additions were illegal. The Ghoshehs hired a lawyer, eventually paying him 100,000 shekels (€14,000) to try to have the procedure halted, to no avail.

The Ghoshehs were told that they either had to tear down the addition themselves or pay the municipality 100,000 shekels in demolition costs. Two weeks ago the police showed up ready to tear down the structure.

"They came at seven o'clock in the morning to destroy it," says Fatima. "We told them that we preferred to do it ourselves, since they wanted to make us pay a fine."

So Mohammed, relatives and neighbours set about tearing down the addition with their own hands.

"Now we are all sleeping together again in the same room," says Fatima.

The Ghoshehs are not in a unique position among the some 270,000 Palestinians living in annexed east Jerusalem - at least 60,000 of them are at risk of losing their homes because they were built without permits, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a recent report.

Rights groups say that Israel discriminates against the city's Palestinian population as part of its policy to increase the number of Jewish residents in the city that it considers its eternal, undivided capital but which Palestinians want to make the capital of their promised state.

"Israeli planning in east Jerusalem has almost invariably been driven by the calculus of national struggle, the goal of which is to maintain a large Israeli majority in the city," says the Ir Amim rights group.

As a result, some 35 per cent of land in east Jerusalem has been expropriated by Israel for construction of Jewish settlements, it says.

Most of the remaining land can't be built on because Israeli authorities have not approved town plans, necessary for the issuing of building permits, or because it has been designated as "open spaces," sometimes called "green areas," where no construction is allowed.

"There is a clear and systematic discrimination that comes from above," says Meir Margalit of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

"Most of the land in east Jerusalem is green, unlike west Jerusalem," he says. "They don't give permission... particularly in the old city," he says.

"They never say they are refusing to give licences because you're a Palestinian or Muslim, but we can't give a licence because it's a green area.

"Who decides how much land is green? This is a political decision," he said, adding that the policy started in 1995-1996 under then mayor Ehud Olmert, who went on to become Prime Minister from 2006 to 2009, and has become progressively worse since the start of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000".

Jerusalem city authorities deny the charges of discrimination in the policy of issuing demolition orders.

"Illegal construction is illegal construction and buildings that are built that don't meet the codes, it's a public safety issue," remarked a city hall spokesman.

"Mayor Barkat looks at construction throughout the city of Jerusalem equally, all residents of all locations equally," he said. "He is committed to streamlining the process to receive permits for all residents of the city and to better improve planning throughout the city."

The Israeli policy has come under fire from its main ally Washington under the new administration of President Barack Obama, with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton slamming the process as "unhelpful" and in contravention of commitments Israel undertook under the 2003 "roadmap" Middle East peace plan.