25. Rezone Jerusalem Neighborhoods Beyond the Security Barrier

The security barrier built by Prime Minister Sharon in the midst of the Second Intifada runs through the Jerusalem municipality, and two large Palestinian neighborhoods containing 90,000 people (30% of Jerusalem’s Palestinian residents) – the Shuafat refugee camp and Kafr Aqab – are inside the borders of Jerusalem but east of the security barrier. The consequences of this are that none of the services operated by the city of Jerusalem, from police to fire to sanitation, operate inside these two neighborhoods, but those services are also not provided by the Palestinian Authority because it has no jurisdiction inside of the Jerusalem municipality. It has turned the Shuafat camp and Kafr Aqab into no-man’s land with no security, roads and water infrastructure in disrepair, and garbage in the streets. Since Israel is unwilling to assume responsibility for these neighborhoods in any tangible way, they should be rezoned out of the Jerusalem municipality and into the Palestinian Authority as a way of reducing crime and improving security within Jerusalem and making them more inhabitable for the Palestinians living there.