By MWC News

This is a holiday only to settlers and racists, who get a license to provoke and harass Palestinians . . The real 'Jerusalem Day' - when Jerusalem becomes the capital of two states living in peace.

A lie does not become a truth, even if repeated forty-five times. Jerusalem is a not a united city, and has never been a united city in the forty-five years since 1967. East Jerusalem is a Palestinian area under occupation rule. Just so is it treated by the  governmental and municipal authorities of the State of Israel, and by the settlers who are dispossessing the Palestinian inhabitants, with the funding and backing of these authorities - as recently happened again in  the Beit Hanina Neighborhood.

"Jerusalem Day" is not a holiday to Israel's citizens or to residents of Jerusalem. It is a holiday only for the young settlers, who are given by the Jerusalem Police a free hand to hold a provocative "Flag Dance" throughout East Jerusalem – even though in previous years this "dance" developed into an ongoing chain of racist harassment and violence against Palestinian inhabitants.

It is time to end the lie and erase this ugly stain from the calendar of the State of Israel.

The real Jerusalem Day will be the day when the occupation ends and Jerusalem becomes the capital of two states - West Jerusalem the capital of Israel and East Jerusalem the capital of Palestine.

Only then can Jerusalem truly be a united city, by the free will of all its inhabitants - Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Contact: Adam Keller, Gush Shalom Spokesperson