http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?id=45807&mador=5
Ha'aretz, May 5, 1999
All in a night's misery
By Danny Rubinstein
At 6 A.M. Monday morning, there was already a long
queue of several hundred people waiting outside
the East Jerusalem offices of the Interior
Ministry. All those in line were Arabs, and many
of them had arrived outside the offices on the
previous evening, spending the whole night
outdoors. Angry, sometimes violent outbursts can
be witnessed here every morning: shouting,
screaming, shoving, even fistfights. Young men,
women with babies, elderly people and pregnant
women all stand crowded together for hours between
the iron fences establishing the boundaries of the
line, virtually turning the narrow sidewalk into a
small cage. Every now and then, someone faints and
an ambulance is called for.
A group of local thugs has taken control of the
line, showing up at the site every evening,
reserving spots on the line and later selling them
to the highest bidders. The prices range from NIS
100 to NIS 300, depending on the place in the
line. One of the people waiting in line said he
had tried to file a complaint with the police
against these thugs, but was asked to give exact
names. Since he was afraid to do so, the police
refused to register his complaint and open an
investigation.
Most of the people waiting in line outside the
East Jerusalem Interior Ministry refuse to
disclose their identity, fearing that the ministry
will take revenge on them by turning down their
requests.
A.M. wishes to submit a request for family
unification. He has an East Jerusalem identity
card and has married a cousin of his from Jordan.
Now he wants her to also be given a card which
will enable her to reside in Jerusalem
permanently. Submitting the request involves a NIS
510 fee, which is nonrefundable even if the
request is denied. M.K. has married a Russian
woman and wants her visa extended so she can stay
with him in Jerusalem.
Many of the people waiting in line simply wish to
renew their identity cards. Israeli citizens are
not required to renew their identity cards, but
East Jerusalem's Arabs are not citizens and must
therefore come to the Interior Ministry every few
years and renew their cards. Anyone failing to do
so risks forfeitting his card, and maybe even his
right to live in Jerusalem. In order to renew the
card, residents are sometimes asked to bring
dozens of documents proving that they indeed still
live in Jerusalem and have not transferred their
"life center" elsewhere. The documents include
arnona (municipal tax) bills, water bills,
electricity and phone bills, a television
licensing fee receipt, a lease on an apartment,
and bank statements showing transfers from the
National Insurance Institute (children's
allowances, old age pensions, and so on). Not all
these documents are always required. Usually the
clerk is satisfied with just a few of them, and at
times he does not ask for any.
In this matter, as in many others regarding the
East Jerusalem Interior Ministry's policies, there
is deliberate ambiguity. No one knows exactly how
often identity cards need renewal: After five
years? After seven? Maybe ten? The directives
change every now and then. The list of required
documents is also not fixed. The people waiting in
line claim that the directives are purposely not
clear and changed periodically so as to confuse
and scare them. And most of them are indeed
confused and scared.
R.M. has come to register his one-month-old son on
his identity card. He claims that if he does not
register him within one year from the time of his
birth, the Interior Ministry will refuse to do so,
and he will then have to submit a request for
"family unification" with his baby son. That is
what happened to one of his neighbors.
Among those waiting in line, many are here seeking
a Laissez Passer. West Bank and Gaza residents
travel abroad today on Palestinian passports
issued by the Palestinian Authority. Under the
agreements, Israel forbids Jerusalem's Arabs from
holding such passports and, since they are not
entitled to Israeli ones either, the result is
that they have no right to any passport. Most of
them, therefore, travel abroad on Israeli Laissez
Passer cards, or on Jordanian documents that
function as temporary passports.
Around 8 A.M., when the ministry offices are
scheduled to open, the shouting and shoving
increase. People literally trample each other in
an attempt to get to the entrance. The offices are
situated in an old building on Nablus Road, which
in the past housed the municipal education
department of the Jordanian Jerusalem
administration. Israelis coming from the northern
neighborhoods of Jerusalem pass here on their way
to the Western Wall and Damascus Gate.
A Tel Avivian happening across the scene stops to
inquire as to the commotion. After being told what
is going, on he turns to two of the Israeli
Interior Ministry officials, entering the building
from a side entrance, and tells them that the
scene is a disgrace to Israel.
"People are being treated like animals here," he
says. You are right, the two officials tell him.
One of them adds that they have been complaining
about the situation for years, and suggests that
he take the matter up with the minister.
But the truth of the matter is that there is no
point in talking to Interior Minister Eli Suissa.
Before being appointed to his current position, he
was the ministry official in charge of East
Jerusalem. He set up this system, and no one knows
how it operates better than he does. The minister
and ministry's deliberate ill treatment of
Jerusalem's Arabs has been widely discussed and
challenged, both by the Arab media and by human
rights groups.
Suissa and his Shas party have in recent years
become very popular among Israeli Arabs. They
flatter them, point out the similarities between
them and Shas in terms of respect for tradition
and religion and lack of respect for Zionism Shas
has made a name for itself as a party that cares
for Israeli Arabs' needs. Suissa and his
colleagues get their payback on election day.
But Jerusalem's Arabs do not have the right to
vote, and therefore there is no point and no need
to flatter them. Instead, the Interior Ministry
creates difficulties and employs a host of tricks
and ruses against East Jerusalem's Arabs in an
attempt to make their lives miserable, driving
them out of the city by bureaucratic means - or at
least preventing Arab immigration to it. According
to leaks from the Interior Ministry, there is even
a secret arrangement with the Palestinian
Authority, under which it has agreed not to
complain too much about Israel's humiliating
treatment of Jerusalem's Arabs.
Shortly after 8 A.M., two Israeli security men
come out of the building and ask the people
waiting in line to move back so as not to trample
those at the head of the line. The crowd does not
listen. By 9 A.M., some 50 people manage to push
their way into the offices, screaming and shoving.
A nearby shopkeeper says that this is a relatively
quiet morning. Sometimes the security men
forcefully throw people who failed to bring the
correct documents out of the offices, and then the
commotion is huge. Experts on the ministry's
procedures set up stands on the sidewalk and fill
out forms for people for a NIS 10 fee.
Approximately half of the 300 people waiting in
line will manage to get into the building by noon,
when the offices close their doors to the public.
The rest will go home empty-handed. Most of those
turned away did not begin standing in line until
after 2 A.M., considered very tardy in local
terms.
Around 10 A.M. there are still more than 100
people waiting in line outside the East Jerusalem
Interior Ministry. They are all very tired, their
eyes are red and their nerves are shot after
spending a whole night waiting in line and
fighting to keep their places in crowded
conditions. Around 11 A.M., one of the people who
had been waiting in line all night called the
Ha'aretz Jerusalem office. After waiting for
another two and a half hours inside the building,
he said, he and everyone waiting with him were
informed that their requests could not be dealt
with that day because the computer system crashed.
So they all went home.
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