By Graham Usher One day after Israel commemorated the 31st anniversary of the occupation of East Jerusalem Jewish settlers demonstrated the means by which Israel has not only tightened its hold on the city in the intervening years but, should the settlers and others of their ilk get their way, will continue to do so in the future. On 25 May some 30 or so supporters of the Ateret Cohenim settler movement (whose chief sponsor is the Jewish property magnate Irving Muskowitch, currently in town to attend Jerusalem's "renunciation" ceremonies) started to lay the foundations of a new Yeshiva inside the Muslim quarter of the occupied Old City. Ateret Cohenim laid claim to the property earlier this month, as "revenge" for the killing of a Yeshiva student in the Old City. The settlers decision to translate their illegal presence at the site into an illegal though concrete fact may have been facilitated by the presence of Muskowitch. But it was aided emotionally by the belligerent character of this year's "Jerusalem Day" celebrations, which, in a break with recent tradition, saw some 13,000 Israeli soldiers march through Jerusalem's streets. Whatever the motive, the settlers wasted no time in establishing one more Jewish "fact" to add to the 60 or so properties Muskowitch, or groups financed by him, have acquired in the Muslim quarter over the last decade. By Tuesday morning the settlers had laid eight cement floors, installed water and electricity and set up seven "temporary homes" to house themselves until the Yeshiva is built. And despite having no municipal permit for the construction, the site was guarded by Israeli Border Police as well as "private" security agents. A cruel irony: the floors were being laid by Palestinian workers. The Palestinian leadership was typically slow to react. Apart from the presence of Faisal Husseini, the PLO's head of Jerusalem affairs, the only protest against the settlers' actions on Monday came from Israel's Peace Now movement. But on Tuesday members of the Palestinian Legislative Council voted to suspend its session in Ramallah and go, en masse, to confront Israel's latest Jewish settlement in Jerusalem. Forcing their way onto the site, scuffles broke out between the PLC members and Border Police, leaving at least one Palestinian injured and one "temporary home" destroyed. Calm was eventually restored when the PLC speaker, Ahmed Qrei (Abu Alaa), met with Israel's Internal Security Minister, Avigdor Kahalani, who announced that a court "restraining order" had been placed on the construction in the name of the municipality and Israel's Antiquities Department. The latter had petitioned that the settlers' building had already done damage to the ancient wall that rings the Old City. But no Palestinian will put much stock in a court ruling to right this wrong. Past experiences -- such as the Ras Al-Amud settlement last September -- suggest a more likely scenario. The settlers will stay put while a court debates the legality of their presence and in the meantime another new settlement will quietly be implanted in the heart of a densely populated Palestinian neighbourhood. It was with this sense of powerlessness that PLO negotiator, Saeb Erekat, drew a direct parallel between the provocation posed by the settlers in Jerusalem and provocation posed by the Netanyahu government in the region. Surrounded by baton swinging police officers he said: "The settlers' unilateral acts in the Old City are an extension of Netanyahu's unilateral acts in the peace process. And both are dragging Israelis and Palestinians to the edge of the precipice." Even without Ateret Cohenim, tension has been running high in Jerusalem. One reason was the militaristic nature of this year's Jerusalem Day parades. The other was the presence of a delegation representing the one political institution that has most enabled such militarism to flourish -- 25 US congressmen and women led by House speaker and possible Republican presidential contender, Newt Gingrich. While Gingrich refrained from his plan to lay a "foundation" stone at the putative site for a US Embassy in Jerusalem, he did not refrain from visiting the Har Homa Jewish settlement at Jebel Abu Ghneim nor from touring the West Bank by helicopter, courtesy of Israel's national infrastructure minister, Ariel Sharon. Throughout his visit, Gingrich has laboured the line, a la Netanyahu, that "Israel, and Israel alone, will determine its security needs." Indeed, there have been moments when Gingrich came across as more Israeli than the Israelis. At a meeting on Monday Gingrich was told by Israeli President Ezer Weizman that a resolution of the crisis over the second redeployment would have to be found because, "if we don't find a solution, something will blow up." Gingrich was due to meet with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Wednesday but on condition that Erekat not attend. Erekat had warned the House speaker that, should he go ahead with his intention to lay a foundation stone for a US Embassy in Jerusalem, he "would be playing with fire." Given Gingrich's "unilateral act", speculation was rife that the meeting would not take place. It did, despite the fact that, as many Palestinians would have suggested, if Arafat could not turn away the settlers from Ateret Cohenim, then at least he might turn away Gingrich. --see photo-caption--
