Faraan: Jerusalem is the most religious city in the world. The book, Israeli Planning in Jerusalem, provides the readers the original, first-hand maps, illustrations, and plans of the Jerusalem city construction process, a treasure from the ancient maps and areas and the division. Likewise, it described how the city was gradually captured and changed, and the calculated flow of the Palestinian people away from Jerusalem.
The Khaybar Zionist Research Base; the book, Israeli Planning in Jerusalem, was written by Yousef Rafiq Jabarin and translated by Javad Sharabaf and Fatemeh Kazemi. This book was published by the Islamic Culture Publishing Office in 2018. This book is one of the most well-documented and published sources on Israel’s plans and programs for the Judaification of Jerusalem and the methods and procedures for implementing this plan. Numerous documents, reliable statistics, numerous maps, several references and the author of this book have made the present work more readable.
Book Identification
Author: Yousef Rafiq Jabarin
Translators: Javad Sharabaf and Fatemeh Kazemi
Publisher: Islamic Culture Publishing Office
Book Review
Jerusalem is the most religious city in the world. The book, Israeli Planning in Jerusalem, provides the readers the original, first-hand maps, illustrations, and plans of the Jerusalem city construction process, a treasure from the ancient maps and areas and the division. Likewise, it described how the city was gradually captured and changed, and the calculated flow of the Palestinian people away from Jerusalem.
In fact, it is a summary of what has happened to the Palestinian people over the past half-century.
The Judaification of Jerusalem is part of the policy of completely evacuating the occupied Palestinian city and replacing it with the Jews. The strategy of systematic deportation of the indigenous and Palestinian citizens is not a new policy, but has long been on the agenda of the Israeli leaders. All the various governments that came to power after the occupation (right, left and coalition), had a consensus in this particular case. This situation has gained momentum, especially after the Madrid peace talks. According to credible sources, the demographic composition of the city and its suburbs is almost homogeneous and Jewish. The periods and aspects of this policy have been considered in the present book during the last one hundred years.
The present book is written in five chapters. The first chapter of “Introduction” is in fact an entry that prepares the readers to commence the reading of the book. In this section, after defining the planning and strategy used by the occupying regime in Jerusalem, it discusses Israel’s plans for complete domination of Jerusalem, the impacts of the planning of domination in Jerusalem, and the planning steps for the domination of Jerusalem.
The next four chapters of the book, which make up the main context of the book, are: “Planning Jerusalem, expelling the Palestinians”; “Israeli Planning in Jerusalem (1920 – 2014)”, “The Future of Jerusalem according to the Israeli National and Local Plans” and “Abstract: Violation of the Palestinian Political and Ethnic Rights in Planning for Israeli Sovereignty in Jerusalem”.
Changing the Population Structure of Quds
As we read in this book, planning to change the demographics of this city is not a new policy. Rather, all the leaders of the Zionist government have believed in it from the past to the present, and the governments that have come to power in the past decades, whether right, left or coalition, had a consensus in this matter.
The bitter truth is that in the last ninety years, none of the Muslims born in Jerusalem have taken a serious part in its urban policy-making. Despite all the pressures and discrimination, they have tried to continue their silent resistance against the occupiers by living in their homes. Nevertheless, the Zionist regime’s government plans have changed the population structure of these areas in different periods.
In his book, Yousef Rafiq Jabbari shows how the demographic composition of this city and its suburbs has become almost homogeneous and Jewish, based on the reports from reliable sources, statistics, tables and maps.
The result of this planning is the complete destruction of the villages in the western part of Jerusalem, the domination of Palestinian neighborhoods and architectural heritage in West Jerusalem, the transformation of Jerusalem into a dual ethnic city, the prevention of an independent Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, the confiscation of more land in East Jerusalem, the conversion of Arab neighborhoods into poor neighborhoods, increasing poverty among the Muslim children and so on.
According to these plans, not only do the Muslims lack the right to build in their hometowns, but they are also not allowed to repair. With these similar tactics, a high percentage of them are increasingly recognized as criminals. Criminal for living in your hometown!
Planning of the Zionist Regime in Palestine
This book is a historical and analytical account of the Zionist plans in the occupied Palestine that we have witnessed over the past almost one hundred years (1920-2014). The planning that took place in each period according to the policies of the leaders of the Zionist movement, had different forms and pursued different goals. Nonetheless, one of the most important programs that the movement has always focused on has been the Judaification of Jerusalem and the policy of completely evacuating the occupied Palestinian city and replacing it with the Jews. In his book, Yousef Rafiq Jabarin specifically focuses on this Israeli planning in Jerusalem and tries to depict the historical course of this story by narrating the strategy of the systematic deportation of the indigenous and Palestinian citizens, with the intention of disrupting the population in the area and increasing the number of the Jewish settlers.
What the author means by the term ‘planning’ in this book is the “purposeful intervention in the reconstruction of a certain area and space through new distribution and division of land, reorganization of resources and material development such as land and wealth.” This definition is used to refer to the planning in different countries with formal intervention of government institutions and is carried out under a special ideology and is purposefully used in the reconstruction and formation of specific geographical spaces and the realization of geopolitical goals.
In the course of narrating and analyzing the Israeli planning process in Jerusalem, Yousef Rafiq Jabarin, has used the language of statistics to show the different stages of the implementation of this program, as well as to present maps that reflect the gradual change of the population in this holy city. This feature makes the present book different from the other books similar to it.
Said Abu al-Qadhi
