- Title: JERUSALEM: ISRAEL REVOKES RESIDENCY PERMIT OF PROMINENT PALESTINIAN ACADEMIC.
- Date: 4th August 1999
- Summary: JERUSALEM (AUGUST 4, 1999) (REUTERS) 1. LV: SKYLINE OF JERUSALEM'S OLD CITY 0.05 2. GV: PEOPLE IN LINE OUTSIDE ISRAELI INTERIOR MINISTRY OFFICE IN EAST JERUSALEM 0.11 3. CU: OLD MAN IN LINE 0.15 4. MV: VARIOUS OF ARABS WAITING IN LINE (2 SHOTS) 0.23 5. GV/PAN: A PHILISOPHY PROFESSOR AT JERUSALEM'S AL-QUDS UNIVERSITY, MUSA BUDEIRI
- Embargoed: 19th August 1999 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: JERUSALEM
- City:
- Country: Israel
- Reuters ID: LVACBLL6QA12ZJM9LYJRFXIRVRP2
- Story Text: Israel has revoked the residency permit of a prominent
Palestinian academic from East Jerusalem and given him a
tourist visa and thirty days to leave the country.
A member of one of Jerusalem's most prominent
Palestinian families has had his residency permit revoked by
the Israeli government and was given thirty days to leave the country.
Musa Budeiri, a philosophy professor, received a letter
from the Israeli Interior Ministry saying he has no right to
live in Jerusalem because he holds a British passport and
bases his home outside of the country.
But Budeiri insists he will not leave Jerusalem.
At the Interior Ministry office in East Jerusalem, scores
of Palestinians queue in the scorching sun from early morning
for travel documents.
Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, which Israel
captured from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East War and then
annexed, are unable to travel abroad without Israeli permits.
The Israeli Interior Ministry revokes residency if an East
Jerusalemite has either resided outside of Israel for seven or
more years or has received another citizenship.
Budeiri, who teaches at East Jerusalem's al-Quds
University belongs to one of Jerusalem's biggest and oldest
families; his grandfather was the chief religious judge of
Jerusalem in 1924.
His home can be entered from inside the courtyard of the
Al-Aqsa Mosque.
"My family lives actually in the plaza of the mosque
itself.I mean, from the upstairs rooms you can actually see
the Dome of the Rock," Budeiri said Wednesday (August 4).
Budeiri's wife and children have also been stripped of
their Jerusalem permanent residency permits.
"I think there is an ongoing Israeli attempt to thin out
the population in Jerusalem," he said.
"In 1948 and in 1967 we had a massive Israeli campaign of
ethnic cleansing.Since 1967 we've been having an individual
campaign of ethnic cleansing where the Israelis are pushing
out people under all kinds of reasons and pretexts," Budeiri
said.
B'Tselem, a Jerusalem-based human rights organisation,
says nearly 5,400 Palestinians of Jerusalem have had their
residency revoked since 1967.
"My passport was returned to me with a stamp on it
indicating that the Ministry of Interior has decided to change
my status from that of permanent resident to that of tourist,"
Budeiri said and added he was given thirty days to leave the country.
Prominent Israelis and Palestinians lobbied on Budeiri's
behalf to reverse the Interior Ministry's decision.
The issue was brought to the attention of Haim Ramon, an
Israeli minister in charge of Jerusalem affairs.
"I think it was a mistake to change the policy between
1996 and 1999.Even I will describe the goal of the previous
government that less and less Palestinians will live in
Jerusalem - they failed to reach this goal as well," Haim Ramon
said in Jerusalem.
The Palestinians accuse Israel of using bureaucratic rules
as a weapon to reduce the city's Arab population and cement
the Jewish state's claim to Jerusalem as Israel's "united" capital.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's government, voted into
office on July 6, has said it will review the policy of
stripping Palestinians of their right to live in Jerusalem.
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