Resource center

Oshrat Maimon, the policy advocacy director at Ir Amim, noted that the NGO had contacted the university on several occasions on the issue. "We hope that the university's recognition of the tawjihi, which is recognized by the best universities around the world, will lead to improved educational and employment opportunities for Palestinian university students from Jerusalem."

According to Ir Amim, building plans slated for implementation by the government would effectively eliminate any options for a two-state solution, for a Palestinian capita

Ir Amim Executive Director Yudith Oppenheimer: “We felt this sense of urgency earlier. It is not as if everything here was so wonderful until Trump was elected. We could feel the distress before that too. What is different now is that it is clear that the rules of the game have changed. What worries me most is the lack of inhibitions shared by the US administration and us [the Israeli government]. We are in the era where politics is constructed by images and emotions. [Former President] Barack Obama represented a humanistic liberal ideal, while everything here [now] is so capricious.”

This report examines three plans in East Jerusalem that reflect the efforts made by Palestinian residents to eventually build legally and eliminate the threat of demolition. Our examination of the obstacle course faced by these plans shows that the Israeli authorities do everything within their power to delay the process and ultimately thwart any detailed plan of significant scale, effectively preventing lawful construction by Palestinians.
 

Ir Amim Executive Director: I yearn for the day in which numerous embassies will open in Jerusalem, but only when it is a city of peace. In this city the American flag will fly over two embassies, the American embassy to Israel in west Jerusalem and the American embassy to Palestine in east Jerusalem.

Following Prime Minister Netanyahu's statement of January 22, 2017 about lifting restrictions on construction in East Jerusalem, Ir Amim compiled a list of building plans

​Ir Amim: “The United States will find it exceptionally difficult to effectively fulfill its pivotal role as a mediator if and when it moves its embassy to Jerusalem. Such a move contradicts the position of the entire international community while clearly favoring one side over the other.”

The proposed legislation to annex Ma’ale Adumim being promoted by right wing leaders would apply Israeli law over the city, as well as the E1 area which is included in its municipal boundaries.

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The annexation of Ma’ale Adumim would substantially harm the existential interests of Israel.  It would perpetuate a settlement bloc in the heart of the West Bank and irreparably damage territorial contiguity between the northern and southern West Bank. Equally damaging, the annexation of Ma’ale Adumim and E1 will block East Jerusalem on its eastern side, swallow up its last development reserves and deepen its detachment from the West Bank. Given Ma’ale Adumim’s critical location in the heart of the West Bank, the international community has for years been following with special concern all developments in this area, seen as a touchstone for the viability of a two-state solution. The international community is further concerned by the situation of thousands of Bedouins who reside in the area and suffer harsh treatment as a result. Indeed, the Clinton Parameters (2001) included Ma’ale Adumim within the area to remain under Israeli sovereignty following the signing of an agreement and land swap. Yet this area is a substantially smaller one than today’s built-up area of Ma’ale Adumim, and in any event such a move is possible only in the framework of a comprehensive agreed resolution. Moreover, the area which right-wing leaders wish to annex includes E1 to the north of Ma’ale Adumim, which effectively doubles the size of Ma’ale Adumim in a manner which completely alters the local geo-political situation and transforms the areas of the future Palestinian state into separated cantons while essentially emptying it of all meaning. The annexation of E1 would further cut off East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, precluding the possibility of its functioning as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Map showing houses in Beit Hanina under threat of demolition, after Jerusalem Municipality annouced that it would advance the demolition of 14 homes in Beit Hanina, housin