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JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A civil engineer in East Jerusalem opposes a Palestinian boycott of Israeli politics by presenting himself at the city hall with a campaign calling for fair municipal services while bypassing the long struggle for sovereignty.
PHOTO FILE: Ramadan Dabash, a civil engineer from East Jerusalem who is standing in the next municipal elections and running for mayor of Jerusalem, sits in his office in East Jerusalem, August 30, 2018. REUTERS / Ammar Awad
A third of Jerusalem's inhabitants are Palestinians, in the areas Israel captured in a 1967 war and annexed as the capital, which is not recognized abroad. They pay taxes and complain about the negligence of Israeli authorities more attentive to Western Jewish neighborhoods.
This separation has been bolstered by the Palestinian Authority's policy of non-participation in Palestinian municipal politics, which exercises limited autonomy over the adjacent Israeli-occupied West Bank and wants East Jerusalem to be the capital of the Palestinian capital. 39, a hoped-for territory. future Palestinian state.
Ramadan Dabash, 51, is as old as the Israeli regime and, having witnessed a diplomatic stalemate – the latest round of state negotiations collapsed in 2014 – and with waves of violence, he is impatient to change. He speaks in terms of pragmatic adaptation.
"The people of East Jerusalem suffer tremendously from the lack of services and representation in the Jerusalem municipality," Dabash told Reuters in his district of Sur Baher, where poorly maintained streets and piles of open waste are common.
"Some people claim that it's a" normalization "or an" Israelization ", but that's not true," said Dabash, a political independent. whose campaign was condemned by the Palestinian Authority.
"Receiving services is not considered standardization. It's a continuation of the normal daily life that we live in – we have no other alternative … Rights are taken, not granted. "
Dabash has explicitly avoided running for mayor in the October 30 municipal elections – an Israeli public office boasted by four Jewish candidates, one of whom is an ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet, vying for near.
Another Palestinian, Aziz Abu Sarah, announced an election campaign at the town hall, but quickly abandoned it last month after protesters shouting in Arabic gave him eggs in front of the town hall.
Dabash hopes to win up to five seats out of the 31-member city council. His list "Jerusalem, That's My City" has 13 Palestinian candidates as well as an Israeli Jewish advisor.
Success seems unlikely. A candidate needs 8,000 votes to become a member of the board. Municipal data show that voter turnout in the last two elections of voting-age Palestinians in Jerusalem – which are around 220,000 – has hovered around 3%, suggesting a deep disaffection from the grassroots with Jerusalem politics.
Palestinian leaders strongly disapprove of Dabash's candidacy.
"These attempts have failed before and will also fail this time, because our people in the city of Jerusalem will reject those excluded who are trying to legitimize this occupation and the tools of that occupation," said Adnan Ghaith, head of the PA in charge of the Jerusalem file.
Other reports by Sinan Abu Maizar; Edited by Jeffrey Heller and Mark Heinrich
