Jerusalem Closures

On Tuesday, the Israeli Ministry of the Interior authorized 1600 more housing units for an Ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in East Jerusalem.  This caused a general uproar, and rightfully so considering that while there may be occasional overtures from the Israeli government about a two state solution with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital, there is a lot going on on the ground that's starting to make that a vanishing proposition.  Arab East Jerusalemites generally get the short end of the stick in planning decisions, Jewish development being vastly favored.  You can read a whole lot more about this issue at the Ir Amim (City of Nations) website.  Due to the uproar and a generally tense baseline situation right now, the checkpoints from the West Bank into Israel have been closed.  Tensions are rising right now.

And now for me and all the others here at the institute, this is not just something happening far off to faceless people.  Three of our Palestinian colleagues and friends returned home for the weekend and are now stuck there, unable to return to school until the closure ends.  Sometimes it's incredibly frustrating to be swimming upstream in a river that seems so overpowering.