Since 1967, Israel has been acting to bolster its claim on the entirety of Jerusalem as its exclusive capital and to undermine Palestinian claim to it. The State of Israel has undercut the status and affinity of its Palestinian residents in the city of their birth by assigning them the status of a non-citizen: permanent resident. Against the background of the forcible annexation of parts of East Jerusalem, this population became an ethnic community lacking civil and political rights, while living in a so-called democratic society. The civil status of “permanent resident” was intended to provide the minimum of needs, rights and protections for the Palestinian population, but Israeli policy has largely depleted it of any significance: it prevents East Jerusalem Palestinians from registering their land and assets according to law, places severe limitations on urban planning and residential construction, neglects their neighborhoods’ material and social infrastructure, inhibits economic and social development, and severely limits residents’ freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. In 1988, the Israeli court defined residency status itself as being temporary and conditional, the expiration of which depended on the will of the Israeli authority. In other words, instead of resolving the situation of the Palestinian residents of the city, their residency status became a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, and the need to continually prove that their center of life is in Jerusalem has dictated their lifestyles ever since.

In the years 2002-2004, the separation barrier was constructed under a very difficult security circumstance. Yet the route that was determined for it – one that encompassed 'Greater Jerusalem’ – is an expression of the aspiration to unilaterally dictate the geopolitical and demographic reality in Jerusalem much more than it reflects security considerations. Therefore, the barrier, in effect, annexed additional areas of the West Bank, disconnected East Jerusalem from the surrounding Palestinian areas and social fabric, exacerbated the housing and economic crises in the city, and deepened the fragmentation and segregation of the entire Palestinian space. In Jerusalem itself, the barrier physically removed from the city the areas of Kufr Aqab-Semir Amis in the north of the city, and the area of the Shuafat Refugee Camp in the northeast, including the neighborhoods of Ras Shehadeh, Ras Khames, and Dahiyat al-Salam. Twenty years after the construction of the separation barrier, some 150,000 people live in these ‘neighborhoods beyond the barrier’– comprising more than one-third of the population of East Jerusalem. Officially, these are considered neighborhoods of Jerusalem, whose citizens pay taxes to the Jerusalem municipality, contribute to the economy of the city, and are an intricate part of its existence; in practice, the Israeli authorities refrain from engaging with these neighborhoods in all manner possible, abandon them to their fate, and deliberately turn a blind eye to the poverty and overcrowding that have developed there.

Since its construction, the barrier has become an instrument for displacing Palestinian residents from the city. There are those who previously lived in the neighborhoods, and suddenly found themselves outside the barrier, and then there are the tens of thousands who have been forced to migrate due to the situation within the city created by Israeli policy – among them, a near total lack of permits for Palestinian residential construction within the city, and the risk of losing residential status for living outside the municipal boundaries. The conditions in the neighborhoods beyond the barrier are an extreme reflection of the situation in East Jerusalem: complete neglect of physical and societal infrastructure, abandoning of neighborhoods to criminal elements and to hasty, unplanned construction that does not comply with minimal standards; an almost complete absence of social services; and the necessitation of passing through checkpoints that deals a fatal blow to Palestinian freedom of movement. Nevertheless, many residents of East Jerusalem are attracted to these areas that are officially inside the city even though they are separated from it by the barrier. Namely, residents who are at the most vulnerable edge of Israeli policy in all matters related to socio-economic status, lack of housing , and the risk to their residential status. They hold on to their residency in these neighborhoods beyond the barriers as a final refuge against completely abandoning life in the city of their birth, aware of the trap laid out for them, but continuing to step into it for lack of any other option. That is the way it is when life hangs by a thread – oscillating between the fear of complete severance from Jerusalem, and the inability to survive within its futile conditions. Under these circumstances, today’s survival is the black hole of tomorrow.

The past decade has witnessed an escalation of the attempts to formally detach the neighborhoods beyond the barrier from Jerusalem, evidenced both by means of attempted legislation and through government declarations and plans. This trend is liable to act as a boomerang if it further undermines the linkage of these neighborhoods to Jerusalem, or if a humanitarian catastrophe takes place there – something that is almost inevitable under their current living conditions. Without a drastic change in the plight of the neighborhoods beyond the barrier, Israel will not be able to ignore the humanitarian, social, and political consequences of its actions for long. In the absence of a legal or political shift, mutually assured destruction continues: Israel is not initiating any legistlative or foundational change in the status of the neighborhoods beyond the barrier, denoting something that is liable to complicate matters in the internal and international political arenas; Yet Israel continues, at every opportunity, to use the separation barrier as a tool for expelling Palestinians from the city. However, even if the neighborhoods beyond the barrier are completely disconnected from Jerusalem, Israel will not be able to shake its practical and moral responsibility, nor will it be able to deprive these Palestinian residents of their bond to the city. On both sides of the barrier lie a large poverty-stricken and oppressed population that are distinguished one from the other only by the depth of their despair.

There is no similar situation anywhere in the world: the existence of an ethnic national group deprived of civil and political rights, partially imprisoned within closed enclaves, not on some distant planet but in the very capital of a state that claims to have a democratic regime.
No wall can protect Israel from the ensuing consequences.