By Zhu Jianhui, Xinhua
Jerusalem : Sitting in his cafe standing by the footway leading up to Mount of Olive, a tourist must in East Jerusalem, Nabil Ansari, the owner of the cafe in his 50s, was worrying about the fate of the city where he lives as a Mideast peace summit loomed.
Although the sovereignty of the East Jerusalem is unlikely to be finalized at this summit to be held in American Annapolis, the Arabs living in the area are hard to get rid of the jitters from the slight possibility.
In Ansari eyes, the sovereignty of the East Jerusalem is a dilemma.
“This is our land but we don’t have freedom of movement,” said Nabil Ansari, referring to the status quo under the Israeli rule.
“Israeli police is after me to check my ID when I go to the Old City to pray in the Mosque,” he said sourly.
However, the middle aged man did not favor the supposition that the East Jerusalem is under the Palestinian rule either.
“The Palestinians don’t have business and factories, so it’s very hard to find a job there,” Ansari said.
He attribute the recent increase of the Palestinians seeking Israeli citizenship to the rumor that Jerusalem will be divided soon. “Those Palestinians fear that they will lose Israeli resident status and live a hard life under rule of the Palestinian government.”
While fulfilling the obligations, mainly paying taxes, the Arabs in East Jerusalem enjoyed as many social benefits as Israelis, such as health insurance and welfare payments, and freedom to work in Israel, a privilege that most Palestinians in the West Bank were denied.
However, some Arabs in East Jerusalem still have the feeling of being neglected despite those benefits. Nour Eldien, a 35-year-oldbusinessman living in the Arab neighborhood of Ras Al Amud, is one of them.
“We pay high taxes but get nothing in return,” he said, believing the Annapolis summit may benefit some parties but absolutely not the 22,000 Arab inhabitants in the area whose life largely contingent on the fate of the most disputed place in the world.
When Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967, the city’s Arabs were granted the status of permanent residents and Israeli ID cards.
They are also allowed to request citizenship, but most Jerusalem Arabs rejected such move as it means recognition of Israeli occupation over the city.
Decades passed, a lot of Arabs in the city have been accustomed to the weird situation, just as 64-year-old Arab doctor Zuhair Nassereddin put it “Although life is very difficult but we are accustomed to such a special way of living.”
The old doctor in Ras Al Amud neighborhood prefers keeping status quo unchanged, as he has confidence that Jewish people and Arabs can live together in peace.
Considering the complicated nature of Jerusalem issue, division of the city may bring more problems.
Khaled Abu Toameh, a veteran Palestinian affairs correspondent from East Jerusalem, said that it is almost impossible to divide the small city clearly as Jewish and Arab neighborhoods are mixed among the scant 30 villages.
“Talking about dividing Jerusalem or establishing barrier inside Jerusalem only complicate matters and make life almost miserable,” said Toameh.