JERUSALEM // Occupied East Jerusalem was in virtual lockdown on Wednesday as Israel set up checkpoints, deployed 300 troops and authorised security forces to seal off streets and demolish Palestinian homes.
The draconian new security crackdown came as Israeli police shot dead two more Palestinians. Bassel Sadr, 20, from the West Bank city of Hebron, was killed at an entrance to Jerusalem’s Old City. Police claimed he had tried to stab a security guard, but admitted the guard had not been harmed.
Later in the day, an unidentified Palestinian was shot dead by police near Jerusalem’s central bus station. He was alleged to have stabbed and moderately injured a woman.
Thirty Palestinians and seven Israelis have been killed in two weeks of violence. Most of the Palestinians killed have been protesters or civilians shot by Israeli security forces.
Palestinian officials and human rights groups condemned the new security measures, the most serious clampdown in the Jerusalem area since a Palestinian uprising a decade ago, as collective punishment.
They were agreed at a meeting of Israel’s security cabinet on Tuesday night, when prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered the residency rights of Palestinians accused of attacks to be revoked, and authorised the demolition of more homes of people accused of carrying out attacks.
The Israeli cabinet also approved an expansion of the national police, extra guards on public transport and the deployment of army units in “sensitive areas” along the steel and concrete barrier that divides the West Bank.
Dimitrii Delliani, an official in Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement, said closing entrances to Palestinian neighbourhoods was “collective punishment in violation of all international law”.
The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem called the government’s response “the very inverse of what ought to be done” to stop the violence.
“The events of recent weeks cannot be viewed in a vacuum, isolated from the reality of the ongoing, daily oppression of four million people, with no hope of change in sight,” the group said.
An Israeli police spokeswoman said checkpoints were being set up at “the exits of Palestinian villages and neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem”.
Israeli security specialists said the threatened closures were unworkable: it was impossible to fully cut off Arab areas and risked further fuelling tension.
In a city of more than 800,000 people – about 65 per cent Jewish and 35 per cent Palestinian – sealing off the Arab areas is not only a logistical challenge but economically problematic. A large number of Palestinians work in the west as bus drivers and in bakeries, hotels, shops and petrol stations.
In all, the virtual border runs for about 12 kilometres, from the district of Beit Hanina in the north, around the edges of the walled Old City, and down to Jabel Mukabar and Sur Baher in the south.
“I don’t think the Israeli government would be stupid enough to do it,” said Mustafa, 47, a father of five who lives in Abu Tor, a mixed neighbourhood on the dividing line. “It’s like shooting yourself in the leg – it would kill the economy.”
He shook his head, hoping the violence would pass and the closures would not be fully imposed. “They tried it in the first intifada, but it only made things worse,” he said. “Not again.”
Human Rights Watch said the lockdown was “a recipe for harassment and abuse”.
“Locking down East Jerusalem neighbourhoods will infringe upon the freedom of movement of all Palestinian residents,” it said.
Hamas spokesman Hussam Badrawn said the measures “will not stop the intifada. People of resistance do not fear new security restrictions.”
The hilly backstreets that twist around the illegally annexed eastern half of the city were quieter than normal yesterday, as were the streets on the western, Jewish side.
Israeli paramilitary border police used their vehicles to block an exit at the edge of Jebel Mukabar, an East Jerusalem neighbourhood and home to three Palestinians shot dead on Tuesday.
Police carried out body searches and examined the identity papers of Palestinian motorists. Cars were then allowed to leave.
“You can’t shut this street down. I have Jewish and Arab customers,” said Ammar, who helps run a falafel and kibbeh restaurant on Abu Rabi’a street in Jabel Mukabar, six metres from Meir Nakar street in the Jewish district of Talpiyot Mizrah.
Across the road, on a raised plateau protected by a fence, stood two Israeli policemen, one an Arab Christian, the other a Druze, watching closely from the shade of an umbrella. Two stun grenades hung from the awning.
“It’s quiet for now,” said one, wearing a stab vest and carrying a riot helmet. “But you never know.”
The causes of the increased turmoil are many, but Palestinians are angry about increased Jewish encroachment on Al Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City.
There is also deep-seated frustration with the failure of years of peace efforts to deliver an end to Israeli occupation, with the Palestinians no closer to statehood and no end to Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent state, together with Gaza and the West Bank. Israel sees all of Jerusalem as its undivided capital.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said he would travel to the region to try to ease tensions “and see if we can’t move away from this precipice”.
* Agencies
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
Company%20profile
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Europe’s rearming plan
- Suspend strict budget rules to allow member countries to step up defence spending
- Create new "instrument" providing €150 billion of loans to member countries for defence investment
- Use the existing EU budget to direct more funds towards defence-related investment
- Engage the bloc's European Investment Bank to drop limits on lending to defence firms
- Create a savings and investments union to help companies access capital
From Zero
Artist: Linkin Park
Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
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The BIO
Favourite piece of music: Verdi’s Requiem. It’s awe-inspiring.
Biggest inspiration: My father, as I grew up in a house where music was constantly played on a wind-up gramophone. I had amazing music teachers in primary and secondary school who inspired me to take my music further. They encouraged me to take up music as a profession and I follow in their footsteps, encouraging others to do the same.
Favourite book: Ian McEwan’s Atonement – the ending alone knocked me for six.
Favourite holiday destination: Italy - music and opera is so much part of the life there. I love it.
The specs: 2018 Nissan Altima
Price, base / as tested: Dh78,000 / Dh97,650
Engine: 2.5-litre in-line four-cylinder
Power: 182hp @ 6,000rpm
Torque: 244Nm @ 4,000rpm
Transmission: Continuously variable tranmission
Fuel consumption, combined: 7.6L / 100km
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Various Artists
Habibi Funk: An Eclectic Selection Of Music From The Arab World (Habibi Funk)
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
THE LIGHT
Director: Tom Tykwer
Starring: Tala Al Deen, Nicolette Krebitz, Lars Eidinger
Rating: 3/5
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