By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent    
The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies (JIIS), which in the past supported removing Arab neighborhoods from the capital's jurisdiction and placing them in Palestinian hands, will submit to the prime minister and policy makers a detailed document setting out the thorny legal and municipal issues involved in dividing Jerusalem. The institute's researchers now question whether Israel actually stands to "profit" (demographically and economically) from the removal of Arab neighborhoods from East Jerusalem, as the supporters of the city's division had until now assumed.
The experts of JIIS, including Prof. Ruth Lapidot, former Foreign Ministry director general Reuven Merhav, Prof. Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov, JIIS Director-General Ora Ahimeir and Dr. Israel Kimhi, drafted various scenarios for dividing Jerusalem that were submitted to the political leadership. JIIS documents served as the foundations of plans presented by then-prime minister Ehud Barak at Camp David in 2000 as well as those currently being discussed by the Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams.
In the latest report, former Foreign Ministry legal adviser Dr. Robbie Sabel and Gilad Noam, a J.D. candidate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, note that residents of East Jerusalem will have the option of moving to Israel proper before the separation. (Many have already declared their lack of desire to become part of the Palestinian Authority  N.S.)  
The authors of the report suggest that the State of Israel's financial-moral obligations to East Jerusalem Arabs will not end if the neighborhoods are no longer within its jurisdiction. These include National Insurance Institute allowances, such as unemployment and old-age stipends, as well as health services and welfare payments.
Most of the constitutional rights in Israel are also extended to permanent residents (the status that applies to East Jerusalem Arabs)," the authors note. These include freedom of occupation. "The sweeping cancelation of social services, allowances, the right to receive health services and other rights associated with the withdrawal of permanent residency status will provide strong grounds for a claim of violation of the right to an honorable livelihood."
The authors suggest that compensation payments, along the lines of those given as part of the Gaza Strip disengagement, may be in order for East Jerusalemites whose permanent residency status is injured. The report cites a Supreme Court ruling on the Gaza evacuees, according to which "depriving a person of the possibility of practicing the vocation that he practiced in a particular territory as a result of a change in territorial status represents a violation of the constitutional right to freedom of occupation."
According to the researchers, a unilateral separation from the Arab neighborhoods could raise questions about Israel's obligations to their residents from the perspective of the international community. In terms of international law, a unilateral separation could be interpreted not as a restoration of the pre-1967 situation but rather as a blatant violation of the principle of equality, in the distinction that it makes between Arab and Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. "This argument is particularly serious in light of the violation of minority rights," the authors write.
According to Ahimeir, "Jerusalem functions as a united city for 40 years, twice as long as the period when it was divided between Israel and Jordan. Separating from the Arab neighborhoods, even with an agreement, will not be easy. It involves complex issues of international and Israeli law, questions of rights and practical problems with regard to both the separated areas and the city from which they will separate. Our role vis-a-vis the decision makers is to illuminate the difficulties and to put all the information on the table so that all the implications are clear," Ahimeir explained.
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