Residents of the Palestinian neighborhood, Jabal al-Mukaber, protested on March 20 the proposed demolition of their homes to make way for an expansion of a highway that would connect Israeli settler neighborhoods / credit: Jessica Buxbaum
Correction: The majority of homes to be razed were built after 1967. A previous version of this article stated otherwise.
EAST JERUSALEM—For the fifth week in a row, residents of Jabal al-Mukaber, a Palestinian neighborhood in Occupied East Jerusalem, demonstrated outside city hall against a municipal plan to demolish their homes.
Banging drums, blaring fog horns and blowing whistles, protesters demanded on March 20 that the municipality freeze 62 home demolition orders. Residents received these notices in January as part of a plan to expand the American Road, a highway cutting through Jabal al-Mukaber and largely viewed as a bypass serving illegal Israeli settlements throughout Jerusalem.
“This is a political target by the municipality to push the residents of Jabal al-Mukaber to take their stuff and live outside of Jerusalem,” said Mohamed Nas, who received a demolition order.
A map depicting the American Road as well as its proposed expansion / credit: The Middle East Eye
East Jerusalem’s ‘Urban Renewal’ Plan
The American Road was first proposed in 1996. It is named after a much narrower road U.S. contractors had abandoned midway through construction because the Six-Day War had begun in 1967. By the 2019, plans were underway to turn the rural road into an urban highway. The latest $250 million construction began in 2020.
The American Road recently was widened by 52 feet. But now plans are underway to expand the highway by another 105 feet, where the 62 houses slated for demolition are located.
An estimated 800 housing units also are being threatened with demolition to develop both sides of the highway, mostly for commercial and office use.
Sari Kronish, an architect with Israeli planning rights organization Bimkom, explained the municipality is hoping to turn the area around the American Road into an urban center. But without an adequate proportion reserved for residential use, the municipality’s urban renewal scheme fails in addressing the neighborhood’s main issue—a lack of housing.
“Equitable housing solutions are what drive the market,” Kronish said. “If we compare it to other places in the country, you have a minimum of 50 percent housing here.”
According to Kronish, residential building rights are included in this development plan, but do not allow for legalizing existing homes. Therefore, the houses in Jabal al-Mukaber will need to be razed and rebuilt into 8-floor units to meet the municipality’s new standards.
While only 62 homes in Jabal al-Mukaber have received official demolition orders, residents say municipal building plans suggest a total of 862 homes on about 94 acres are at risk of demolition because of the highway’s outlined development and proposed commercial center.
“Projects of urban renewal and evacuation and construction are being led, in cooperation and in dialogue with the residents,” said a municipality spokesperson, referencing reaching a joint compromise with the Bashir family in Jabal al-Mukaber.
However, the municipality did not respond when asked to elaborate on this agreement. Nas said any proposed settlements in Jabal al-Mukaber are false.
Israeli forces try to disperse Palestinian residents as a Palestinian building, located in Zif village, is demolished by Israel allegedly for being “unlicensed,” in Hebron, West Bank on February 15 / credit: Mamoun Wazwaz / Anadolu Agency
Denying the Right to Build
In a statement to Toward Freedom, the municipality said they will not permit illegal construction in the city. The majority of homes in Jabal al-Mukaber, and throughout East Jerusalem, lack building permits.
According to Jerusalem municipality data obtained by settlement watchdog group, Peace Now, only 16 percent of Jerusalem’s Palestinian neighborhoods received building permits from 1991 to 2018, compared to 38 percent of construction permits approved for Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem. The extreme difficulty Palestinians experience in getting construction permits forces many to build without the necessary approvals or live in homes deemed illegal.
Not only do Palestinians face a labyrinth of bureaucratic procedures when building, but a lack of available land as well. Palestinians in East Jerusalem can only build on 17 percent of the land, while 35 percent is labeled as green spaces or conservation areas. In Jabal al-Mukaber, nearly 70 percent of the land is designated as “open space.”
Mohammad Mashal, 71, received his first demolition notice in 1994. He’s paid 200,000 shekels, or $62,000, in fines over nearly three decades. Mashal consistently applied for a permit, but was always rejected. Just last month, he received another demolition order as part of the 62 cases slated for demolition.
Ahmad Akmasri, 25, explained his father built their home before 1967 and decided to extend it in 2006. In 2010, the family started applying for a permit. But, until now, no building rights have been issued.
“We’re talking about 12 years in which we paid up to 100,000 shekels [$31,000] in fees, applications for the engineers, lawyers, all of what you can imagine, and it’s still not yet done,” Akmasri said.
Akmasri’s family is also embroiled in a separate building obstacle due to the Kaminitz Law. Passed by the Israeli parliament in 2017, it allows officials unlimited power in cracking down on unauthorized building, specifically in granting extensions on demolition orders. In addition to the 62 demolition cases in Jabal al-Mukaber, 70 other cases are related to the Kaminitz Law, including Akmasri’s family. With this new legislation, the family faces yet another fine after being unable to secure an extension in 2020 over administrative issues spurred by the coronavirus pandemic.
Raed Bashir, the lawyer representing the neighborhood, submitted repeated objections to the municipal court against the demolition orders—all of which were rejected. But the movement remains steadfast as Bashir plans to submit next month an objection to Israel’s Supreme Court.
Mousa Jumah, 61, received a demolition notice about a decade ago.
“We have no rest in our life,” he said, describing a tense environment not unlike the atmosphere of the March 20 protest. “We are under pressure, and pressure leads to explosion.”
Amid the beating of drums and marching demonstrators inching closer and closer to barricaded city hall doors, Jumah captured the sentiment under the loud chanting: A sense of perpetual uncertainty.
“We have no future,” Jumah said. “We are wasted in this world.”
Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based freelance journalist reporting on Palestine and the Israeli occupation. You can follow her on Twitter at @jess_buxbaum.
Ola Nababta prays at her son’s grave in east Jerusalem’s al-Yusufiya cemetery, over which Israel is threatening to build a park / credit: Jessica Buxbaum
EAST JERUSALEM — Surrounded by bulldozers, Ola Nababta clung to her son’s grave to prevent Israeli authorities from razing his remains.
“Pour the earth over me and bury me beside him,” the 54-year-old told Israeli soldiers.
شاهد| المقدسية أم علاء نبابتة تحتضن قبر ابنها لحمايته من عمليات النبش والتجريف التي يجريها الاحتلال في المقبرة اليوسفية في القدس المحتلة. pic.twitter.com/ER2n0fJ3vD
That particular day in October, she was successful in stopping the Israeli government from exhuming her son’s grave. But more than six months later, al-Yusufiya cemetery in East Jerusalem remains under threat as the city’s government plans to build a promenade over the land, as part of a proposed “Bible Trail,” a string of national parks.
In February, the Jerusalem Municipality’s planning board rejected objections from Muslim religious authorities and Palestinian landowners against the municipality’s seizure order for part of the cemetery to construct the park. Court hearings are still ongoing as the parties debate the ownership of the cemetery and objections to the confiscation order.
‘Picnics Alongside Graves’
Mustafa Abu Zahra, head of the Committee for the Care of Islamic Cemeteries, described the municipality’s actions as an attack against graveyards and a violation of the Palestinian people’s rights.
“How can people go and have picnics on the side of graves?” Abu Zahra told Toward Freedom.
According to Abu Zahra, seven graves are located in the area set to be expropriated, with many more that are unmarked.
Part of the cemetery belongs to the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, a Muslim body responsible for managing holy sites in East Jerusalem. The other section belongs to the el-Uweisat family. While the family’s section was a sheep market during most of the 20th century, it has since become a parking lot.
The Jerusalem Development Authority together with Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority (INPA) began construction in the cemetery last year, telling Toward Freedom they have received all of the necessary permits and court approvals for construction. In October, human bones were found during excavation works at the cemetery, sparking widespread protest. Nababta was one of those protecting their loved ones’ graves from Israeli bulldozers. Despite Palestinian resistance to the project, authorities finished building a fence dividing the cemetery and demolished a staircase in late 2021.
The municipality argues the area in question is defined as a public green space. “The graves that were shown in the media were built in the open public area outside the cemetery,” a spokesperson for the Jerusalem municipality told Toward Freedom. In 2014, Israel banned Palestinians from being buried in the cemetery and later poured concrete over around 40 graves.
“Nevertheless, it should be emphasized that no tomb was damaged during the works, and there is no intention to displace any grave, even if built illegally,” the spokesperson continued, adding the park is meant to improve Muslim residents’ quality of life and make the area more accessible.
Israeli authorities erected a fence in 2021, dividing al-Yusufiya cemetery / credit: Jessica Buxbaum
‘Zero Trust’
Al-Yusufiya cemetery was established at the beginning of Muslim rule over Jerusalem and expanded during the reign of Al-Nasir Salah Al-Din Yusuf—the landmark’s namesake. The graveyard is an extension of Bab al-Rahma cemetery, located next to Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound. It became known as Martyrs’ Cemetery after Palestinian and Jordanian soldiers who fought during the 1967 Six-Day War were buried there. A monument to the deceased soldiers is located inside the graveyard.
Abu Zahra explained the Waqf has a document dated before 1967 from the Arab municipality of Jerusalem’s master plan stating the land surrounding Al-Aqsa will be designated as a burial site. Israeli authorities, however, are using evidence from before 1963 in court. Abu Zahra asserted the master plan is the latest decision, thereby eliminating all prior rulings.
Nababta, a widow whose husband and son are buried in al-Yusufiya cemetery and whose other two sons are buried in Bab al-Rahma, said she received permits from the Waqf to bury her relatives in the graveyards. Even with the legal documentation, INPA spent years summoning Nababta for interrogation about her sons’ graves. The Israeli authorities alleged her sons were buried on property belonging to INPA.
After her son, Alaa Nababta, was laid to rest in al-Yusufiya in 2017, the Israeli Ministry of Health contacted her, demanding her son’s body be removed.
The communications stopped, though, when her husband passed away in 2019. Then, in 2021, her concerns resumed when she saw Israeli authorities exhuming graves on social media.
“Most of my sons were ex-prisoners. They suffered. One of them was killed [by Israeli forces]. One of my sons was a prominent activist within Jerusalem. So, I know all of these stories and I have zero trust toward Israelis,” Nababta said.
‘We’re Always Threatened’
Since Israel’s establishment in 1948, authorities have confiscated roughly 70 percent of Mamilla cemetery, a burial ground in West Jerusalem, to create a municipal park called Independence Park, plus main roads and a school. In recent years, the government has built tourist facilities and begun constructing the Museum of Tolerance over the burial ground.
Several other cemeteries have also been dug up around Jerusalem.
“We’re always threatened, even when we are dead,” Nababta said.
While construction in al-Yusufiya cemetery has subsided, the 54-year-old mother said she will not stay silent if the bulldozers return.
“[Israel] says it’s a park and I’m not sure who it’s going to be serving,” she said. “But what I know now is that, as Muslims, it’s serving us as a graveyard.”
Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based freelance journalist reporting on Palestine and the Israeli occupation. You can follow her on Twitter at @jess_buxbaum.
Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky (left) with former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Background: Israeli flag / credit: Toward Freedom photo illustration
Editor’s Note: This article was first published in The Grayzone.
Just forty days after Russia’s military campaign began inside Ukraine, Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky told reporters that in the future, his country would be like “a big Israel.” The following day, one of Israel’s top promoters in the Democratic Party published an op-ed in NATO’s official think tank exploring how that could be executed.
Zelensky made his prediction while speaking to reporters on April 5, rejecting the idea that Kiev would remain neutral in future conflicts between NATO, the European Union, and Russia. According to Zelensky, his country would never be like Switzerland (which coincidentally abandoned its Napoleon-era tradition of nonalignment by sanctioning Russia in response to its February invasion).
“We cannot talk about ‘Switzerland of the future,’” the president informed reporters. “But we will definitely become a ‘big Israel’ with its own face.”
For those wondering what a “big Israel” would actually look like, Zelensky quickly elaborated on his disturbing prophecy.
“We will not be surprised that we will have representatives of the Armed Forces or the National Guard in all institutions, supermarkets, cinemas—there will be people with weapons,” Ukraine’s president said, predicting a bleak existence for his citizens. “I am sure that our security issue will be number one in the next ten years.”
Though the web post was based on comments Zelensky made to reporters, the president’s office mysteriously excised a section of his remarks in which he declared a future Ukraine would not be “absolutely liberal, European.” Instead, along with his vision for a heavily militarized Ukraine, the post emphasized Zelensky’s readiness to join NATO “already tomorrow.”
For NATO’s power brokers, however, Zelensky’s intimated willingness to join the military alliance was perhaps the least remarkable aspect of his statement. Instead, within 48 hours of his comments, the Atlantic Council—NATO’s semi-official think tank in Washington—published a “road map” exploring how to transform Ukraine into “a big Israel.”
Authored by Daniel B. Shapiro, the former U.S. Ambassador to Israel under President Barack Obama, the document posited that “the two embattled countries share more than you might think.”
Just as former U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig presented Israel as “the largest American air craft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk,” Shapiro put forward a vision of Ukraine as a hyper-militarized NATO bastion whose national identity would be defined by its ability to project U.S. power against Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visits the Western Wall in Jerusalem, January 2020
Israel and Ukraine: “Old, Loyal Friends”
Despite Israel’s reluctance to join the Western sanctions campaign against Russia, it has aided Ukraine’s militarily, sending two large shipments of defensive equipment since February of this year. In the past, however, Israel’s support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia has been more than defensive.
Back in 2018, over 40 human rights activists petitioned the Israeli High Court of Justice to stop arming Ukraine after members of the neo-nazi Azov Battalion were caught brandishing Israeli-made weapons. As Israel’s Ha’aretz noted at the time, “The militia’s [Azov] emblems are well-known national socialist ones. Its members use the Nazi salute and carry swastikas and SS insignias… One militia member said in an interview that he was fighting Russia since Putin was a Jew.”
Zelensky, a Ukrainian Jew, was apparently unperturbed by Israel’s alleged arming of Nazi elements in his country. One year after his 2019 election, he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to launch what he called a “prayer for peace,” and to attend an event titled, “Remember the Holocaust to fight anti-Semitism.” Ahead of the junket, Zelensky heaped praise on Israeli society, remarking in an interview that “Jews managed to build a country, to elevate it, without anything except people and brains,” and that Israelis are a “united, strong, powerful people. And despite being under the threat of war, they enjoy every day. I’ve seen it.”
Happy Birthday, @netanyahu! I wish you and all the Jewish people good health and the strength to face all the challenges of the rapidly-changing world. At a time like this, old loyal friends are more valuable than ever. #Ukraine and #Israel have a friendship such as this. pic.twitter.com/jhonXgiqAl
“There are many countries in the world that can protect themselves, but Israel, such a small country, can not only protect itself, but facing external threats, can respond,” Zelensky said, adding that he had visited the country “many times.”
In a birthday message later that year to Israel’s then-Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Zelensky commented that “old loyal friends are more valuable than ever. Ukraine and Israel have a friendship such as this.”
Since the escalation in fighting between Kiev and Moscow in February of this year, dozens of Israelis have traveled to Ukraine to join the country’s Foreign Legion.
More and more Israeli soldiers are showing up in Ukraine, ready to fight against the Russian Army.
In August, the Canadian government-backed Kyiv Independent published an investigation which accused Ukraine’s Foreign Legion of stealing arms and goods as well as carrying out sexual harassment and other forms of abuse.
Meanwhile, Zelensky has continually heaped praise on Tel Aviv, especially after an Israeli Supreme Court decision to lift restrictions on citizens traveling to Ukraine.
“The rule of law and respect for human rights is exactly what distinguishes a true, developed democracy!” the Ukrainian President tweeted following the July ruling.
I commend the decision of the Supreme Court of the State of Israel, which obliges the government of 🇮🇱 to abolish any additional restrictions on the entry of citizens of 🇺🇦. The rule of law and respect for human rights is exactly what distinguishes a true, developed democracy!
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 3, 2022
A Hyper-Militarized Apartheid State As a Model for Ukraine
By April of 2022, Zelensky’s admiration for the Israeli state had apparently reached new heights. Immediately following his declaration that Ukraine would soon become “a big Israel,” Washington’s former ambassador to Tel Aviv, Daniel B. Shapiro, published a blueprint for Zelensky to achieve that dream at the Washington D.C.-based, NATO-sponsored Atlantic Council.
“By adapting their country’s mindset to mirror aspects of Israel’s approach to chronic security challenges, Ukrainian officials can tackle critical national-security challenges with confidence and build a similarly resilient state,” Shapiro, an Atlantic Council “distinguished fellow,” wrote.
The nearly 900-word outline offered eight bullet points detailing how Ukraine can become more like Israel, a country recently described by Amnesty International as an “apartheid state.” The points included advice such as to place “security first,” maintain “Intelligence dominance,” and remember that “technology is key.”
According to Shapiro, a central component of Israel’s security strategy is that “the whole population plays a role.”
“Civilians recognize their responsibility to follow security protocols and contribute to the cause,” Shapiro wrote of the Israeli population. “Some even arm themselves (though under strict supervision) to do so. The widespread mobilization of Ukrainian society in collective defense suggests that the country has this potential.” These comments align directly with Zelensky’s prediction that in a future Ukraine, “people with weapons” will be present in nearly every aspect of civilian life.
Like the propaganda touting Israel’s “success” as a security state, Shapiro’s blueprint imagined Ukraine’s citizenry united by a “common purpose” with help from Tel Aviv’s “high-tech innovation” in the military and intelligence sectors. His game plan portrays Israel’s advancements in security to as an almost mythical achievement owing purely to the feisty, innovative spirit of its citizens, overlooking the single greatest material factor in its success: unprecedented levels of foreign military assistance, particularly from the United States. Indeed, without U.S. taxpayers virtually subsidizing its military through yearly aid packages amounting to untold billions of dollars, it is difficult to see how a country the size of New Jersey would have attained the status of the world’s leading surveillance technology hub.
Even as Shapiro urged Zelensky to maintain “active defense partnerships,” he simultaneously downplayed the role foreign aid has played in preserving Israel’s settler-colonial imperatives, arguing that the “single principle” informing Tel Aviv’s security doctrine is that “Israel will defend itself, by itself—and rely on no other country to fight its battles.”
Shapiro must have forgotten that principle when he tweeted, “Thank God Israel has Iron Dome”—a reference to Israel’s air defense system that U.S. taxpayers funded to the tune of $1 billion in 2021 alone, on top of $3.8 billion in military assistance earmarked for Tel Aviv that year.
Thank God Israel has Iron Dome to protect its citizens from Hamas rocket from Gaza. But Israel's ability to defend itself doesn't in any way lessen the outrage of a terrorist organization firing at civilians from within civilian areas.
In his advice to Zelensky, Shapiro also emphasized that “Ukraine will need to upgrade its intelligence services” in a similar manner to Israel, which “has invested deeply in its intelligence capabilities to ensure that it has the means to detect and deter its enemies—and, when needed, act proactively to strike them.”
Then-Amb. Daniel Shapiro speaking at the 2016 conference of the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies, which would later employ him.
A U.S. Diplomat Stays Behind in Israel, Goes to Bat for Its Top Spying Firm
Shapiro would know a thing or two about the Israeli intelligence apparatus. In mid-2017, after opting to remain with his family in Israel, rather than return to the country that had employed him as a diplomat, he joined the Israeli tech firm NSO hacking firm as an independent advisor. There, Shapiro helped evaluate potential clients for NSO’s notoriously invasive digital spyware, known as Pegasus. NSO’s many government clients include the Saudi Monarchy, which has used its Pegasus system to monitor and persecute human rights campaigners and journalists.
Shapiro has also enjoyed close ties with Israeli intelligence through the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) think tank in Tel Aviv. During the better part of his four years as a “Distinguished Visiting Fellow” at the institute, its executive director was Amos Yadlin, the Israeli Defense Forces’ former chief of Military Intelligence. Yadlin helped devise the doctrine of disproportionate force employed by the Israeli military against Gaza in which civilians were redefined as the “terrorists’ neighbor,” and thereby stripped of protections under the Geneva Conventions.
In 2018, INSS paid Shapiro more than $20,000 to testify before Congress on its behalf, despite him not registering as a foreign agent. Like NSO Group, INSS maintains a veneer of independence from the Israeli government even though its founder, Aharon Yariv, also served as the head of Israel’s military intelligence.
In the US, Shapiro had a stint at WestExec Advisors, a consulting founded in 2017 by now-Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and described by Politico as “Biden’s Cabinet in waiting.” Prior to the election of Joe Biden, Shapiro ran cover in the media after the Democratic Party’s platform removed language opposing further annexation of land in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.
War—It’s Good for Atlantic Council Donors
It is likely no coincidence that Shapiro published his prescription for converting Ukraine into an Israeli-style security state in his capacity as a “distinguished fellow” at the Atlantic Council. If Ukraine is ever transformed into the permanent military fortress he and Zelensky imagine, the NATO think tank’s weapons industry donors stand to benefit immensely.
Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Boeing were all listed among the Atlantic Council’s top benefactors in 2021. Raytheon Chairman and CEO Gregory J. Hayes also happens to sit on the think tank’s international advisory board. As Max Blumenthal reported for The Grayzone, the Atlantic Council has also served as a de facto laundromat for money from Ukrainian interests like Burisma to members of Biden’s inner circle.
The three aforementioned arms companies, which form the heart of Washington’s military industrial complex, have already reaped massive profits from the war in Ukraine. Boeing, which faced a public relations crisis after malfunctions in its 737 Max plane’s operating system resulted in two high profile crashes, could be on track to reclaiming its status as the world’s top aircraft manufacturer as a result of the conflict.
Though Boeing suffered two consecutive quarterly losses in 2022, by July it claimed to be “building momentum” for a recovery. In June, the aerospace giant secured a contract to supply heavy-lift helicopters to Germany’s government after Berlin created a $107 billion fund for military investment in direct response to the Ukraine war.
Meanwhile, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin both manufacture the Javelin anti-tank missile system that have been dubbed a “symbol of Ukraine’s resistance” on the battlefield.
During his visit to Lockheed Martin's Troy, Alabama plant, Joe Biden pushed for approval of his proposed $33 billion military aid package to Ukraine by claiming Ukrainians were naming their children "Javelin" and "Javelina" after the anti-tank missile the plant manufactured. pic.twitter.com/zNPiKRjSrw
“They’ve been so important, there’s even a story about Ukrainian parents naming their children—not a joke—their newborn child ‘Javelin’ or ‘Javelina,’” U.S. President Joe Biden gushed during a May visit to a Lockheed Martin plant in Troy, Alabama, underscoring the company’s vital role in the Ukraine war with absurdity.
The United States has sent more than 8,500 Javelin anti-tank systems to Ukraine since February at a cost of roughly $178,000 a pop, according to the Pentagon’s 2021 budget. Eager to keep the gravy train flowing, Lockheed Martin is seeking to double production, aiming to manufacture 4,000 Javelin systems a year. Lockheed’s 2022 stocks are up more than 20 percent over the previous year, reaching their height just two weeks after Russia’s military operation began.
With inspiration from Shapiro’s NATO-sponsored “road map” to success, Zelensky’s fantasy of a perpetual militarized, high-tech Sparta bolstered by a gun-toting civilian population will require a massive investment in weapons and surveillance technology on the part of the government in Kiev. If this war is any indication, Ukraine will likely look to the Atlantic Council’s donors once again as it ventures to fulfill Zelensky’s dream of establishing a “big Israel” on Russia’s border.
Alex Rubinstein is an independent reporter on Substack. You can subscribe to get free articles from him delivered to your inbox here. If you want to support his journalism, which is never put behind a paywall, you can give a one-time donation to him through PayPal or sustain his reporting through Patreon. He can be followed on Twitter at @RealAlexRubi.
