On February 12, the Arab League is holding a convention on Jerusalem to show Arab help for the occupied metropolis. The Palestinian Authority (PA) appears to have excessive hopes for it. President Mahmoud Abbas spoke concerning the struggling of the Palestinian folks of Jerusalem, their rights and their steadfastness.

Forward of the occasion, Fadi al-Hidmi, the PA’s minister of Jerusalem affairs, declared that this convention could be “totally different” from earlier ones and that it could produce interventions that may be felt on the bottom. The occasion would put the occupied metropolis on the prime of the “Arab agenda”, he maintained.

However for many people Jerusalemites, this new Arab League initiative is invoking extra scepticism than anything. The final time Jerusalem was included within the title of an Arab League get-together – the so-called Jerusalem Summit of 2018 – not a lot modified for us on the bottom.

The summit issued a strongly worded communique, rejecting United States recognition of Jerusalem because the capital of Israel and the switch of its embassy to the occupied metropolis. Simply two years later, nevertheless, a number of Arab nations signed normalisation offers with that very same Israel, sponsored by that very same US.

These so-called “Abraham Accords” irrevocably damage the Palestinian trigger – and by extension Jerusalem. With the agency help of the US and the arrogance of normalisation with Arab states, successive Israeli governments have accelerated the Judaisation of the occupied metropolis over the previous 5 years.

A number of the most brutal instruments of the ethnic cleaning of Jerusalem have been the pressured evictions and home demolitions perpetrated in opposition to Palestinian residents in violation of worldwide legislation. In response to the United Nations Workplace for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), there are near 1,000 Palestinians dealing with the approaching menace of eviction below varied authorized pretences. Their houses will likely be both taken over by Israeli settlers or demolished.

In January alone, 39 Palestinian houses and different civilian buildings had been bulldozed by the Israeli authorities, dispossessing some 50 folks.

The argument the Israeli authorities most frequently offers for these legal acts is that Palestinian buildings would not have permits issued by the Israeli state. In response to the UN, a third of Palestinian houses would not have such permits, which places some 100,000 residents vulnerable to being forcibly displaced at any given second.

Evidently, the Jerusalem municipality not often points permits to Palestinians, however it readily does so for Israeli Jews and Jewish settlers. Since 1967, greater than 55,000 housing items had been constructed for Jews in occupied East Jerusalem.

Final yr, the native authorities accepted the development of a brand new unlawful settlement of 1,400 housing items between two Palestinian neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem, Beit Safafa and Sur Baher, slicing them off from one another. That is one in every of many examples of how Israel is purposefully breaking apart Palestinian territorial contiguity and eliminating any risk of finishing up the so-called two-state resolution, which the Arab League continues to name for.

The Israeli state has additionally accelerated the growth of infrastructure servicing unlawful Jewish settlements in Jerusalem on the expense of the Palestinians.

Take, for instance, the so-called American Highway, a freeway mission that’s set to hyperlink unlawful settlements in south, east and north of occupied East Jerusalem. It would minimize by a number of Palestinian neighbourhoods, reminiscent of Jabal Al-Mukabber, and result in the demolition of dozens of Palestinian homes.

Whereas ramping up the pressured displacement of Palestinians from occupied Jerusalem, Israel can also be doing every little thing to make life unliveable for individuals who stay. As an occupying energy, the Israeli state has the obligation below each worldwide humanitarian legislation and human rights legislation to make sure the welfare of the inhabitants, however it isn’t doing that.

Though Palestinians pay taxes to the Israeli state, identical to Israelis, they don’t get the identical degree of providers. Fundamental infrastructure and utilities in Palestinian neighbourhoods are uncared for, because the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem allocates lower than 10 p.c of its finances to Palestinian residents, who characterize greater than 37 p.c of the inhabitants of town.

In 2001, the Israeli Supreme Courtroom discovered that Israeli authorities had been violating their authorized obligations to offer correct entry to training to Palestinians in East Jerusalem. Unsurprisingly, the issue solely acquired worse over the next twenty years, and right now there’s a deficit of three,517 school rooms in Palestinian colleges attributable to Israel’s systematic negligence.

Palestinians, after all, don’t have any authorized means to carry the Israeli authorities accountable for violations. They don’t seem to be allowed to vote in Israeli native elections and select who to characterize them. On the similar time, the Israeli authorities is making an attempt to bar them from collaborating in Palestinian politics. In 2021, when Palestinian legislative elections had been purported to be held, Israel made it clear it could not enable Palestinian residents of Jerusalem to vote.

Palestinian political events are additionally unable to function freely in Jerusalem. Any occasion that’s suspected of hyperlinks to the PA is raided and shut down. In early January, for instance, the Israeli police raided a gathering of a dad and mom’ committee within the neighbourhood of Issawiya, the place dad and mom had gathered to debate the scarcity of lecturers. Israeli officers knowledgeable them they had been closing the assembly as a result of it was a “terror summit”.

Worse nonetheless, the Israeli authorities has additionally made it clear that it’s on no account dedicated to the establishment of the holy websites in Jerusalem. Lately, the Jordanian ambassador was violently expelled from Al-Aqsa compound by Israeli police who determined he can not go to. That is although Jordan holds the rights to manage that very same compound and different holy websites in Jerusalem below an internationally recognised settlement.

Beneath the principles of the Jordan-run Jerusalem Waqf Division, non-Muslims are allowed to go to Al-Aqsa solely throughout sure visitation hours and provided that they respect the holy place. However up to now few years, now we have seen an increasing number of Jewish worshippers allowed by the Israeli police to hope in Al-Aqsa, in violation of those guidelines. In the meantime, Palestinian Muslims from outdoors Jerusalem are often barred from visiting their holy place and praying.

It also needs to come as no shock that whereas dispossessing the Palestinians of their houses, correct providers, and even entry to their holy locations, Israel can also be ramping up the financial oppression of the Palestinian folks in Jerusalem.

Palestinian Jerusalemites undergo from excessive poverty charges and financial insecurity, which is simply getting worse. In East Jerusalem, an estimated 77 p.c of Palestinians reside below the poverty line, in comparison with 23 p.c of Jewish residents of West Jerusalem.

Palestinian companies in Jerusalem are being suffocated, as Israel deepens our isolation from the remainder of Palestine. A system of partitions and army checkpoints deny entry to Jerusalem to guests and buyers from close by Jerusalemite cities like Abu Dis, Al-Ram, and Hizma, in addition to from the West Financial institution and Gaza. This isolation has been detrimental to the native economic system.

As well as, Palestinian enterprise house owners face exorbitant taxes with none help from the Israeli state or the PA. This has led to the closure of not less than 250 Palestinian-owned outlets lately, in response to native media.

Certainly, Jerusalem does want help, together with monetary help. The PA is hoping that the convention in Cairo will assist elevate much-needed funds to help the academic and healthcare sectors and provides the native economic system a much-needed increase of international funding.

However any such help – if it certainly materialises – would solely carry restricted, momentary reduction to Jerusalemites. Our metropolis suffers from occupation and apartheid. We want motion on the political entrance and we’d like it instantly. Strongly-worded condemnation and communiques is not going to do.

Certainly, we Jerusalemites are identified for our “sumoud” (steadfastness) and it must be celebrated at worldwide boards just like the Arab League. However below the oppression of a cruel occupier, we’re getting close to the boundaries of our resilience.

The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.