Only 13% of the land of East Jerusalem remains in Palestinian hands

AMMAN, August 31 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - In what he saw as a humble contribution to sincere Arab and Islamic efforts to fight back Israeli attempts to Judaise occupied Jerusalem, which houses the third holiest shrine in Islam, a Jordanian spurned enticing offers to sell a piece of land he owns in the holy city.

Suspecting the offers, all in the tunes of millions of dinars (1 dinar= $1.4), were made by Jewish-driven parties, the man voluntarily sold his priceless land to an Arab organization championing the cause of defending the holy city Arab-Islamic identity for "one dinar", reported the Jordanian Al-Dustor daily Saturday, August 30.

The Jordanian, who was not identified by the daily, had years back bought a piece of land in Sheikh Garah neighborhood in occupied Jerusalem near Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

The man, who hails from a reputable tribe in the north, was recently approached by several local and foreign brokers with alluring offers to sell the land.

Sensing foul play, he consulted with a friend on what to do and happily endorsed his advise to give the land to a credited Arab organization defending the identity of occupied Jerusalem.

The man immediately headed for the organization office in Amman and relayed the whole story to its director.

Paying tribute to his sense of Arabism, the organization executive offered to pay any sum of money but the Jordanian owner asked for time to think of the price he wants for his valuable land.

Few days later, the man returned to the organization director with the land title deeds and when asked what price he wanted; his answer was "a dinar".

"I will get my reward from Allah for preventing my land from falling into the hands of Jews and preserving the Arab-Islamic identity of the holy city," he told the dumbfounded executive.

The fate of occupied Jerusalem is one of the most divisive issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Israel claims all the holy city as its united capital, a position not recognized by the international community, while the Palestinians want to make occupied East Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in 1967, the capital of a future state.

Under the Oslo Agreement, the Palestinians agreed to defer the status of  the holy city in exchange for an Israeli commitment not to attempt to change its demographical character of Arab-Islamic identity.

Two years later, Palestinians watched this promise evaporating before their eyes as the Israelis continue to demolish Palestinian homes and expand Jewish settlements.

In March 1997, Israeli bulldozers starting razing to the ground every Palestinian property on Jabal Abu Ghoneim mountain, near Bethlehem, to build another 6,500 settlement units on 462 acres of forcibly confiscated Palestinian land.

The decision was taken by then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to simply closes the circle of Jewish settlements around the north, east and south side of occupied Jerusalem and changes its demographic character for ever.

It isolated the Palestinians from occupied Jerusalem and cut them off from the rest of the West Bank.

Commenting on the Israeli Judiazation scheme, Daoud Kuttab, a Christian Palestinian journalist, wrote : "A calculated and premeditated process of changing the character and the demographic nature of the Holy City... is taking place. Only 13% of the land of East Jerusalem remains in Palestinian hands. The rest has been confiscated for further exclusive Jewish settlements, by-pass roads or closed military areas."

In a three-hour live dialogue with IslamOnline.net audience on Monday, August 25, Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss Weiss regretted Zionists' attempts to pull down Al-Aqsa Mosque compound as a "tragedy and a cardinal criminal offense."

The leading figure of Neturei Karta, an organization within the Orthodox Jewish community which is dedicated to representing the hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Jews around the world, said: "We are in total opposition to the Zionists' views of the destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque. It is clearly forbidden according to the Torah and the rabbinical authorities."