❶ Israel to displace 23 Bedouin families east of J’lem
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) Israel completes building Apartheid Wall in Al-Khalil

• Background: . “Jerusalem: A Shattered City of Peace.” Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics & Culture.

❷ Israeli forces detain Jerusalemite lawmaker, 2 months after release from prison
❸ Opinion/Analysis: Demographic hysteria leaves Jerusalemites by the wayside
❹ POETRY by Mahmoud Darwish
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❶ ISRAEL  TO  DISPLACE  23  BEDOUIN  FAMILIES  EAST  OF  J’LEM      
The Palestinian Information Center  
Aug. 4, 2017.   The Israeli occupation army has threatened to demolish the homes of 23 Palestinian families in the Bedouin al-Fahidat neighborhood, east of Anata town in Occupied Jerusalem, within a few days.
___According to a local resident, the Israeli army’s civil administration notified the families of its intention to raze all their homes and structures, and gave them three days to evacuate their area, which it said would be used for military purposes.
___The families, half of them children, were deliberately given until Saturday to object to the demolition notice so as to prevent them from finding a sufficient time to prepare and file a complaint, especially during the weekend when official institutions are closed.  MORE . . .
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) ISRAEL  COMPLETES  BUILDING  APARTHEID  WALL  IN AL-KHALIL    
Days of Palestine
August 3. 2017.   Israeli occupation completed building of 26-mile part of its Apartheid Wall in South Hills of West Bank city of Al-Khalil, Israeli media reported on Wednesday.
___The 20-feet high concrete wall with barbed wires and cameras was erected between the Tarquimiya crossing and the illegal Israeli settlement of Meitar.
___In 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled that this Apartheid Wall is illegal because it is built on the basis racial discrimination.     MORE . . .

AbuZayyad, Nisreen. “JERUSALEM: A SHATTERED CITY OF PEACE.” Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics & Culture, vol. 21, no. 4, Mar. 2016, pp. 38-44.    [. . . .] . . . Yet, Jerusalem is not a city one can escape from, especially not the Palestinians. Jerusalem is where their heart and soul is, and not only because of its religious sites – is it where their national identity rose.
___Most of the time, the urge to escape this city is caused by feelings of frustration and by not being able to deal emotionally with what this city has become. The current reality is a daily nightmare to those who were born in Jerusalem and consider it their home. Every day Palestinians are witnessing a part of their soul being shattered and stolen by the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, as what they identify with as their home and identity is being stolen and claimed by the Israelis. This daily uprooting is being covered over and washed away with the burdens of survival, in areas such as housing, employment and residency IDs. Some Palestinians in the city are so consumed with their daily burdens that they are incapable of noticing this daily uprooting. They adapt and adjust themselves to new circumstances imposed by the occupation.
___In East Jerusalem, which has been under continuous attack since its occupation in 1967, Israeli governments have used every legislation and policy to deprive the Palestinians of their natural growth, development or livelihood, making their lives so difficult, miserable and inhuman, to force them to leave. Thus, it is not a coincidence that Palestinians in East Jerusalem are burdened with social and economic problems, which many of us view as an instrument used to destroy Palestinian society and identity there.
[. . . .] Given these circumstances, Middle East Publications – PIJ and Ir Amim decided to carry out a project, supported by IFAZivik, that focuses specifically on the younger generation in Jerusalem who are the key to the future. Each organization is focusing on its concerns and priorities from their own institutional perspective. Middle East Publications — PIJ is working on the priorities of younger Palestinian Jerusalemites in East Jerusalem, while Ir Amim is working on issues which concern the young Israeli Jerusalemites, within the overall objective of finding a just and peaceful solution for the future of the city.   The program includes training programs and political seminars to empower young Palestinian Jerusalemites to advocate their rights and to understand the Israeli occupation system that they work and live within.  FULL ARTICLE . . .

❷ ISRAELI  FORCES  DETAIN  JERUSALEMITE  LAWMAKER,  2  MONTHS  AFTER  RELEASE  FROM  PRISON 
Ma’an News Agency
Aug. 4, 2017.   Israeli forces re-detained Palestinian Jerusalemite lawmaker Muhammad Abu Tair, 66, two months after he was released from Israeli custody after serving a 17 month prison sentence.
___Local sources told Ma’an that Israeli forces detained Abu Tair from his home in the West Bank town of Kafr Aqab — where he has resided since Israel deported him from occupied East Jerusalem in 2010.
___Abu Tair, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) from the Change and Reform Bloc of the Hamas movement representing Jerusalem, was detained on Jan. 28, 2016 from his home and released on May 30, 2017.    MORE . . .
❸ Opinion/Analysis: DEMOGRAPHIC  HYSTERIA  LEAVES  JERUSALEMITES  BY  THE  WAYSIDE
+972 Blog 
By Efrat Cohen-Bar
August 3, 2017.   As far back as the 1970s, the Israeli government set a goal to maintain a Jewish majority of at least 70 percent in its “united” capital of Jerusalem. The goal was set more or less in accordance with the size of the various populations that lived within the new expanded municipal boundaries of the city, established at the end of the war in 1967. Thus, from the first days of the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, every effort was made to achieve this demographic dominance.
____Since then, for the past 50 years, urban planning in Jerusalem has been used as a tool in the service of maintaining demographic levels. On the one hand that planning restricts the development of Palestinian villages and neighborhoods, all while promoting building in Israeli neighborhoods and settlements beyond the Green Line.
___Despite all this, the State of Israel has failed to achieve its vaunted demographic goals in Jerusalem. Israeli Jews make up only 60 percent of the city’s population today. Whenever Israel’s control over Jerusalem is compromised the country goes into a hysteric state. So it should be no surprise that we are now seeing a number of new initiatives to alter the city’s boundaries meant to ensure Israeli demographic dominance.     MORE . . .

“AWAITING  THE  RETURN,”  BY  MAHMOUD  DARWISH

The hovels of my loved ones stand on the sand ―
I, with the rain, stay awake.
I am the son of Ulysses, who awaited the mail from the North;
A sailor called him, but he would not go.
He anchored the boats and took to the highest mountains:
O rock on which my father prayed to shelter a rebel,
I will not sell you for precious pearls.
I will not depart;
Surely
I will not.

The voices of my loved ones cleave the wind, scale the ramparts:
Wait for us, Mother, at the door we will return.
These times are not such as they imagine.
The wind blows as the sailor wills,
And the ship overpowers the tide.
What have you cooked for us, Mother, for we will return?
They have looted the oil jars, Mother, and the flour sacks.
So bring us grain from the fields!
Bring in greens,
We are hungry.

The footsteps of my loved ones are like the moaning of a rock split by an iron hand;
I and the rain are sleepless.
In vain, I gaze through space;
I will remain atop the rock . . . under the rock . . . steadfast.

From THE  PALESTINIAN  WEDDING:  A  BILINGUAL  ANTHOLOGY  OF  CONTEMPORARY  PALESTINIAN  RESISTANCE  POETRY.  Ed. and Trans. A. M. Elmessiri. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2011. Reprint from Three Continents Press, Inc., 1982. Available from Palestine Online Store.
Mahmoud Darwish.