Some 150,000 Palestinians living in Jerusalem neighborhoods on the eastern side of the Israeli-built wall snaking in and out of Jerusalem and the West Bank continue to live in a legal and administrative limbo. The political orphans of East Jerusalem are not allowed to be connected to their Palestinian leadership but are also not part of the Israeli political system even though the latter decides, unilaterally, what happens to them. This was recently reiterated by the Israeli Knesset.
While much of the attention was given to a law passed Jan. 2 requiring 80 out 120 Knesset members to agree to any changes to the boundaries of Jerusalem, another part of the original bill was of much more direct interest to the Palestinians of East Jerusalem. The New York Times reported Jan. 2 that right-wing Knesset member Naftali Bennett, leader of HaBayit HaYehudi, had unexpectedly decided at the last moment to remove a clause that would have made it easier to redraw the map of East Jerusalem.