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The late Faisal Abd al-Qader
Husseini, as the head of the Orient House in East Jerusalem–
occupied by Israel in
June 1967--and PLO Executive Member in charge of Jerusalem File,
used to tell foreign
dignitaries who visited him at his office in the Orient House--
which Israel
reoccupied on orders
from Sharon in the summer of 2001-- that Israel should ultimately
accept the fact that
undivided Jerusalem is the capital of two states: East Jerusalem as
the
capital of Palestine,
and West Jerusalem—occupied by Israel in 1948 outside the UN
partition plan of
November 29, 1947—as Israel’s capital.
Husseini, more often
reminded his visitors, including Israeli peace groups, that Arabs
accounted for 70 percent
of West Jerusalem’s property. The Arab residential quarters of
Qatamon, Talbieh, Baqa’a,
and the villages of Ein Karem, El Malha, and DeirYassin. Arabs
remember the later
village as the ground of a horrible and premeditated Zionist
massacre
against civilian
population. While Abd al-Qader Husseini was battling successfully
the
Haganah at the Castel,
eighty Zionist terrorists from Irgun and Stern Gang, on orders from
Menachem Begin, attacked
in April 9,48 the village of Deir Yassin killing in cold blood at
least 100 Arabs (reports
at the time said as many as 250), including children and pregnant
women. The gruesome
massacre of Deir Yassin was widely publicized intentionally by the
Zionists, causing a wave
of unprecedented panic and demoralization to spread through
Arab Palestine. About
60,000 Palestinians fled the western section of the City of
Jerusalem.
But four days later
Arabs retaliated. Palestinian irregulars ambushed Haganah escorted
convoy to the Hadassah
Hospital; 39 Jews and 6 Palestinians were killed.
Accordingly, the British
authority in Palestine, and Jerusalem in particular, had totally
collapsed. And on May 14
Sir Alan Cunningham, the British High Commissioner, left
Jerusalem for the last
time, and the mandate was terminated.
On May 16,1948 King
Abdullah, overriding Brigadier Glubb (Pasha), the British
commander of the Arab
Legion, ordered the Arab Legion back to Jerusalem.
The next day, he
telegraphed to the UN Secretary General:
We were compelled to
enter Palestine to protect unarmed Arabs against massacres
similar to those of Deir
Yassin. We are aware of our national duty towards Palestine in
general and Jerusalem in
particular and also Nazareth and Bethlehem. Be sure that we
shall be very
considerate in connection with Jews in Palestine while maintaining
at the same
time the full right of
the Arabs in Palestine. Zionism did not react to our offers made
before
the entry of our armed
forces.
At 11:30 a.m. on May 17,
Glubb was ordered by King Abdullah to “ advance towards
Jerusalem from the
direction of Ramallah”. As a matter of fact, Jerusalem was the area
in
which the King turned
down all British and Zionist attempts for reaching a compromise on
its Arab identity.
A cease-fire agreement
came into effect on November 30, 1948 giving the first
acknowledgement of the
de facto division of Jerusalem. An Armistice Agreement was
formalized on April 3,
1949, but considered at the international level to have had no
legal
effect on the UN
partition plan of November 29, 1947 under which Jerusalem and its
surrounding villages
were envisioned as a corpus separatum.
According to the final
report of the UN Conciliation Commission (UNCCP) Land Expert, the
total area of Jerusalem
Sub district (excluding Hebron and Ramallah) was estimated at
296,943 dunums of which
222,482 (74.59%) dunums owned by Arabs. The remaining was
considered to be
Government, public, and Jewish properties. The figures of UNCCP were
not specific on Arab and
Jewish properties of West Jerusalem, which came under Israeli
control in 1948. The
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) “ Village Statistics 1945”
estimated the total area
of Jerusalem, prior to 1948, at 20,790 metric dunums, of which
16,261 dunums (80.5 %)
fell in 1948 under Israeli occupation.
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