All over the Western world, community empowerment programs encourage resident participation by involving community leaders and organizers in decisions about the city in which they live. What could be better than the authorities and residents taking joint responsibility for muni­cipal challenges? In East Jerusalem, this is not so straightforward.

For those who aren’t familiar with East Jerusalem, the Palestinian residents living in this part of the city constitute a third of its population. Their neighborhoods and villages have been neglected for years by the Israeli establishment. In fact, significant discrepancies between East and West Jerusalem exist in every area of life.

In theory, the Palestinians could take action and change their situation. Most of them hold permanent residency rights and are eligible to vote in municipal elections and run for municipal office. They can also join a variety of frameworks to influence municipal institutions such as parent committees, activist groups working to improve infrastructure together with municipal officials, committees within community administrations which encourage resident involvement and more.

Yet their level of involvement is minimal. Instead, frustration and despair, and to a large extent passivity and acceptance of the situation have taken over. However, if we speak to residents across the city, we discover they are very aware of their rights and obligations. In order not to lose their residency rights, they pay municipal taxes consistently (without which they could lose proof of residency within the city boundaries) and are very keen to realize their rights to healthcare, education, housing, and so on.

There are many reasons for their lack of involvement. First, any cooperation on the part of the residents with the Israeli authorities may be construed as a stamp of approval for continuing occupation. Secondly, the various arms of the Israeli establishment discourage leadership in Jerusalem that “could get out of hand.” And third, regional and local chaos generates a sense that circumstances are determined by events beyond their control. As a result, residents tend to refrain from involvement, waiting for an outside source to come and save them.

So when seeds of a new approach emerge it is important to take note. For example, in the neighborhood of Tsur Baher, a village in the southeast of Jerusalem, a group of residents came together a few years ago and set up a “committee supporting education.” The committee works to improve educational systems in the village operated by various bodies – the Jerusalem municipality, the Islamic Waqf, UNRWA, and so on.

Instead of waiting for change, the group held a week of educational activities in the village, the high point of which was a day of discussions in an open space meeting moderated by the Jerusalem Intercultural Center. The event was widely attended by local residents, principals, teachers, students and key figures in the area of education in the village and beyond, including senior education officials from the municipality.

In other cities this would not constitute anything new, but in Jerusalem an initiative led by residents of the eastern neighborhoods is rare and many people within the establishment were surprised by its success.

What was novel about the event was the statement informing the whole event: “We are partners to the change that has to happen in the village.” Instead of just accusing the authorities and demanding that they take action and allocate resources, there was a request to look for joint solutions – to be shared by both the authorities and the residents.

In Jerusalem, this kind of development tends to give rise to a great deal of suspicion. The education administration within the municipality that is responsible for East Jerusalem panicked because collaboration with residents is no small nuisance for a dysfunctional system. In the village itself there were voices calling to boycott any dialogue with the municipality, which is part of the apparatus serving the occupation. There were quite a few from the village and municipality who did not attend events organized by the residents – the necessary conceptual shift that they would have needed to make was too far-reaching, at least for now.

To overcome these suspicions, activists turned to two organizations to mediate between them and the establishment: the Al-Quds Dialogue Center, a Palestinian Jerusalem-based organization, and the Jerusalem Intercultural Center, a pan-cultural Jeru­salem-based organization. On the one hand these organizations work to persuade the establishment that collaborative efforts with the residents will assist in the provision of services. On the other hand, for the residents they help clarify the distinction between collaborative efforts on the one hand, and accepting the occupation and cooperating with its messages, on the other.

The process makes for a very delicate balancing act in an extremely sensitive political climate. The tense atmosphere gives rise to mutual suspicions. Are the groups of activists what Israel calls “a hostile terror-supporting organization” or are they “collaborators, agents of the Israeli occupation?” These suspicions have concrete implications. Any mistake could put the activists in harm’s way. Therefore, mediating organizations are extremely important in making a collaborative effort possible.

Education in Tsur Baher is but one example. Similar initiatives are emerging in other neighborhoods and areas of life, including rubbish disposal, a mother-and-baby center in Silwan, Arabic translations of municipal forms, pedestrian crossings and road safety programs for school children. We hope we are witnessing the development of a new model for the advancement of Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, one that can improve their quality of life until a permanent and just solution is found for the city and the region as a whole. This type of model can perhaps be implemented in other places in the world sharing a reality similar to the one in Jerusalem.