By Joharah Baker
Bingo and Gambling Magnet Irving Moskowitz
Irving Moskowitz may just be one of the biggest threats to the Palestinians in history. He is not an Israeli Prime Minister or leader of an Israeli party; he does not even live in Israel. He is American – albeit Jewish – but he has single handedly helped put several areas of east Jerusalem in the hands of Jewish settlers, stripping the owners of these homes and lands of their ancestral birthright.
Moskowitz, as many already know, is a multi-millionaire who has no qualms about making public his positions on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He was opposed to the Oslo Accords, does not support peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and thinks east Jerusalem should be filled with Jews.
Someone like Moskowitz doesn’t only talk the talk, however. This man certainly walks the walk, pouring n tens of millions of dollars into illegal settlement takeovers in the Palestinian eastern side of the city, irrespective of who he makes homeless, jobless and penniless. Some of this tycoon’s projects include the construction of two mega hotels in east Jerusalem, the city of David, adjacent to the Old City and settlement construction in the Palestinian neighborhood of Ras Al Amoud. Furthermore, Moskowitz funds one of the most infamous settler movements in Jerusalem today, Ateret Cohanim, which is responsible for the eviction of families from their homes in the Muslim quarter of the walled city and Sheikh Jarrah, two Palestinian areas of Jerusalem.
Most recently, Moskowitz’s name popped up again, this time as part of the Israeli municipality’s decision to okay the construction of 20 new housing units in the area the Shepherd Hotel in Sheikh Jarrah. The hotel, originally owned by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Sheikh Amin Husseini was “purchased” by Moskowitz in 1985 and who has since tried to obtain a building license for his project. Only under the most recent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has he been able to obtain the license and has contracted an Israeli company to draw out the blueprints for the new settlement project.
A view of the Shepherd Hotel in East Jerusalem, (Dan Balilty/AP Photo)
The endeavor, like all of Moskowitz’s other enterprises, is not philanthropic in nature. That is, he is not trying to provide shelter for Israel’s poor or underprivileged citizens nor does he want to bolster peace prospects in Jerusalem so that all of its citizens and residents could live in dignity and in peace. On the contrary, Moskowitz aims not to unite, but to divide. By funding these settlement projects, which always find backing from the Israeli government, regardless of east Jerusalem’s international status as occupied territory, the Jewish millionaire hopes to prevent any possibility of the two peoples living together in the holy city. By embedding hostile Israeli settlers in the heart of east Jerusalem, through false claims of ownership, eviction, home demolitions and land confiscation of the Palestinians, Moskowitz understands he is creating solid facts on the ground that will further solidify Israel’s claim of Jerusalem as the eternal and unified capital of Israel.
He has the full backing of Israel’s prime minister, for sure. When even the United States showed discontent with Israel’s decision to push forward the settlement takeover in Sheikh Jarrah, Netanyahu was quick to lash back. As always, his defense was laced with claims of anti-Semitism.
“I can only imagine what would happen if someone were to suggest that Jews cannot live in certain neighborhoods in New York or in London or in Paris or in Rome,” Netanyahu said in response to US calls to halt the settlement plan. “There would undoubtedly be a loud international outcry.”
The only difference is that we are not in New York, where all residents live under US sovereignty and have equal rights to purchasing and residing in the place they choose. In Jerusalem, the world over recognizes the eastern sector of the city as occupied territory, the future of which is to be determined in final status talks. Hence, Israel has no right to alter the status quo of the city, a concept which it has clearly violated time and again.
Even Netanyahu knows this. He may be one of the most impertinent leaders of our time, but he is not stupid. Preventing the takeover of Palestinian land in an occupied area is hardly anti-Semitic nor is it comparable to the “Jews living in New York” analogy. It is all about Israel digging its claws into east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians claim as their future capital.
To be honest, east Jerusalem is already pockmarked with Israeli settlements. Today, there are hardly a few hundred meters of Palestinian area in Jerusalem not interrupted by an Israeli flag or an army watch post signifying Jewish-only territory. This is the most noticeable the closer one moves towards the city’s center where Israel’s clutch is the tightest. So, all the way from Ras Al Amoud in the southeast to the Old City in the heart, to Silwan in the south and Sheikh Jarrah moving north, Israeli settlers have marred the overall landscape of Palestinian Jerusalem. The Hebrew University sits on the Mount of Olives, right next to the Maqassed and Augusta Victoria Hospitals and the Mamilla Shopping Mall is right outside the Old City’s Jaffa Gate, steps away from the Palestinian souvenir shops just inside.
While the US call for a halt to the settlement compound on the ruins of the Grand Mufti’s Shepherd Hotel is undoubtedly positive, it may be too little too late. If it were not for the US’s acquiescence over the years towards Israel’s illegal colonization of east Jerusalem, people like Irving Moskowitz would never have had a leg to stand on. Now the reality on the ground spells out real people and real lives, something Netanyahu never hesitates to exploit. Jews, he says, have a right to live anywhere they want in Israel, including east Jerusalem.
If President Barak Obama remains adamant in his stance towards Jewish settlements in Jerusalem, all his administration has to do then is impose one simple concept: reciprocity. Just as Netanyahu says Jews have a right to reclaim lands he says they own in east Jerusalem, Palestinians should be able to reclaim their lands in west Jerusalem from which they were exiled in 1948. After Palestinian refugees return to their homes stolen from them in 1948, then perhaps we will have something to talk about.
Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Program at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mip@miftah.org.
July 22, 2009 Posted by Elias
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