WND Exclusive FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAUJerusalem Arab caught aiding city's takeover
Palestinians working on 3 fronts to capture Israel's capital
Posted: July 20, 2009
10:51 pm Eastern
By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
Jerusalem
JERUSALEM – A Jerusalem court yesterday sentenced an Arab resident of the city to 42 months in prison after he was convicted of working in Israel's capital as an agent of the Palestinian Authority's General Intelligence Service.
WND exclusively reported last year the PA had established an intelligence apparatus in Jerusalem in part to stop Israeli Arabs from selling their homes to Jews in strategic areas of the city, according to informed security sources.
The Jerusalem court sentenced Muhammad Jayusi, 21, who had been convicted of working for the PA's intelligence service since 2006. He was also convicted of illegally carrying arms.
According to a security source with knowledge of the case, Jayusi was involved with helping the PA discover which Jerusalem Arabs were vulnerable to possibly selling their homes to Jews.
In May, the PA sentenced three Arabs to death for selling their Jerusalem property to Jews. According to Palestinian sources, PA President Mahmoud Abbas personally had signed all death warrants.
Over the past few months, the PA increased its efforts to stop Jerusalem Arabs from selling property to Jews. A contingent of Jewish groups, including an organization called Ateret Kohanim, work to strengthen the Jewish presence in Jerusalem by purchasing properties from Arabs, primarily in eastern neighborhoods, including in Jerusalem's Old City. Some of the purchased properties were Jewish until Jews fled during Arab riots in the early 1900s.
Informed security sources in Jerusalem told WND the PA is acting on three fronts to increase its presence in Jerusalem and to thwart property sales to Jews. First, the PA is leading a campaign to terrorize Arabs thinking of selling land to Jews. Second, the PA is attempting politically to become a larger player in Jerusalem, competing with Jordan for influence over strategic Arab areas. The PA also is attempting to fund popular Israeli religious leaders associated with Jerusalem, such as Islamic Movement chief Raed Shallah. Third, the PA has increased its intelligence activities in Jerusalem to thwart property sales to Jews.
WND last year was first to report the PA's Preventative Security Services had re-established an intelligence arm in Jerusalem originally formed in the 1990s by the late Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat to frustrate Jewish attempts at purchasing property from Arabs.
The intelligence arm consists of activists who work in Jerusalem to identify Israeli Arabs willing to sell land to Jews, security sources told WND last year. A potential Arab seller is warned against doing business with Jewish groups. The sources did not specify particular measures the PA might take against any Arabs working to sell property to Jews. But in the past, cases have been made public in which Arabs have been killed or tortured for such activity.
According to security sources, to ensure against land sales, the PA put together a list of wealthy Palestinian and Arab donors willing to purchase property from Jerusalem Arabs who must sell their land due to financial desperation.
Israel recaptured eastern Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount – Judaism's holiest site – during the 1967 Six Day War.
A number of Arab-majority eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods widely regarded as slated for a Palestinian state include large numbers of Arabs – over 100,000 – who live on Jewish-owned land illegally. The Jewish National Fund, a U.S.-based nonprofit, owns hundred of acres of eastern Jerusalem land in which tens of thousands of Arabs illegally constructed homes the past few decades. Arabs are now the majority on the Jewish-owned land.
Obama protests Jewish construction
The PA is not the only agency actively working to thwart Jewish residency in eastern sections of Jerusalem.
The State Department over the weekend summoned Israel's ambassador to Washington to demand a Jewish construction project in eastern Jerusalem be immediately halted, it has been confirmed.
The Obama administration has called for a halt to Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem and the strategic West Bank in line with Palestinian claims on eastern Jerusalem as a future capital, even though the city was never a part of any Palestinian entity.
The construction project at the center of attention, financed by Miami Beach philanthropist Irving Moskowitz, is located just meters from Israel's national police headquarters and other government ministries. It is a few blocks from the country's prestigious Hebrew University, underscoring the centrality of the Jewish real estate being condemned by the U.S.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly rejected the State Department demand, telling a cabinet meeting Sunday that Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem was not a matter up for discussion.
"Imagine what would happen if someone were to suggest Jews could not live in or purchase [property] in certain neighborhoods in London, New York, Paris or Rome," he said.
"The international community would certainly raise protest. Likewise, we cannot accept such a ruling on East Jerusalem," Netanyahu told ministers.
Netanyahu explained an open city does not discriminate against Jewish housing and that Israel would not accept a stance that counters that civil right.
"Israeli Arabs are not forbidden from buying houses in west Jerusalem, and Jews must be granted the same right in the eastern part of the city," he added.
WND has confirmed that over the weekend the State Department summoned Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren to urge him to reject a permit granted to Moskowitz's housing project.
Moskowitz purchased an eastern Jerusalem hotel. He plans to tear it down and build housing units in its place. The Jerusalem municipality earlier this month granted approval to the project, allowing for the construction of 20 apartments plus a three-level underground parking lot.
Historically, there was never any separation between eastern and western Jerusalem. The terminology came after Jordan occupied the eastern section of the city, including the Temple Mount, from 1947 until it used the territory to attack the Jewish state in 1967. Israel reunited Jerusalem when it won the 1967 Six Day War.
While the U.S. strongly protests any Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem, it has been actively aiding Palestinians building illegally upon Jewish-owned land in eastern sections of the city, WND has exposed.
