More East Jerusalem Palestinians are taking Israeli citizenship, learning Hebrew, and living in Jewish neighborhoods. But does that affect their identity?
Jerusalem — Suha, a young Palestinian lawyer, grew up in East Jerusalem and got her degree in the West Bank, then took a crash course in Hebrew to pass the Israeli bar.
Now she is planning to take a step that was once considered taboo among Palestinians living under Israeli rule in the passionately contested holy city: take an oath of loyalty to Israel in order to become a citizen.
“A lot of people are applying for it. Even people you would never expect: like sheikhs with beards. The lawyers that I work with all have it,” says Suha, who declined to give her full name so as not to risk rejection by Israeli authorities. “I don’t see the occupation going anywhere,” she says. “Eventually I’m going to do it.”
Ever since Israel conquered and immediately annexed East Jerusalem in 1967, the city’s hundreds of thousands of Palestinian residents have lived in limbo. Even as their blue residency cards afforded them Israeli social benefits and freedom of movement, they remained loyal to their countrymen in the West Bank and Gaza and resisted the Israeli system.