NY Times article says Israel “annexed” Jerusalem “against international
opinion.” Opinion? How about law?! That's what I call brainwashing and
mainstreaming media!!
JERUSALEM
— Abutting Israel’s separation wall, the blackened shell of a factory
building known by local Palestinian residents as the station serves as a
den for drug dealers and addicts. Out front, at a bend in the road,
rotting trash smolders in an unofficial garbage dump as children pass on
their way home from the nearby elementary school.
The
dirt and chaos in the Ras Khamis neighborhood of East Jerusalem
represent the ugly underside of the battle for Jerusalem, as Israel and
the Palestinians wrangle over its future.
Over
the last decade, scores of cheap apartment buildings, many a dozen
stories high, have sprung up in several Palestinian neighborhoods like
Ras Khamis, lying just within the Jerusalem city limits but isolated by
the barrier that Israel has built along or through parts of the West
Bank with the stated purpose of keeping out suicide bombers.
The
buildings went up without planning permission, safety regulations or
proper infrastructure. Neglected by City Hall and the Israeli
government, there are no regular municipal services or policing. Yet the
Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited control in parts of the
West Bank, cannot operate in Ras Khamis because Israel considers itself
sovereign in all parts of its capital.
Photo
Trash piles in the Ras Khamis district of East Jerusalem.
Credit
Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times
Trash piles in the Ras Khamis district of East Jerusalem.
Credit
Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times
