Published: 8 September 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
WALID ABU TAYA wants his community leaders to participate in municipal elections, setting aside national grievances for quality of life.
Few causes seem more lost than convincing Palestinian Jerusalemites to vote in municipal elections. But a Jerusalem lawyer believes he will be able to shatter a decades-long taboo on participation in Israel’s political game.
Walid Abu Taya, 69, a Nazareth-born dual Israeli-US citizen, said he began considering running for mayor and creating a list for city council two years ago, while writing his PhD on Jerusalem’s legal issues. His list, “all of its residents,” echoes the dream many Arabs harbour of Israel becoming “a state of all its citizens”.
Abu Taya said Arabs call Jerusalem the “crown jewel” of cities but do nothing but pay lip service to it.
“The occupation has been here for 56 years,” he told The Jewish Independent. “I tell the Arabs: ‘come liberate Jerusalem if you can.’ I cannot liberate it. All I can do is live here and hold fast to the city.”
Since 1969, Jerusalem Palestinians have largely avoided casting their ballot in the municipal elections; the first vote following its unification under Israeli rule in the Six Day War of 1967. Palestinians, comprising nearly 40% of the city’s one million population, often argue that voting would legitimise Israel’s occupation of the eastern part of Jerusalem, including Temple Mount and the Old City.
“That’s not true,” Abu Taya says. “No Arab legitimises the occupation. But we have a national interest that overrides the national consensus to boycott. A similar consensus existed back in 1968 when Egyptian President Abdul Nasser said no to recognition of Israel and no to negotiations with it. But President Sadat came along in 1979 and realised Israel was a fait accompli. He put Egypt’s national interest first and retrieved the Sinai Peninsula through direct negotiations.”
Abu Taya would like to accomplish a similar feat for the residents of his city. According to his calculations, Jerusalem Palestinians have paid Israel some billion dollars in city taxes since 1967, but have seen little return on that money. The poverty level in East Jerusalem has reached 80%, with investment in housing, infrastructure, and education levels incomparable to those in the West.
