News stories by Jerrold Kessel, page 5

Without an efficient bureaucracy, occupation of the land of another people cannot be sustained. This is all the more true of Israel's 42-year occupation of Palestinian lands.

In this city of fraternal faiths and conflicting political aspirations, dreams need to be made of sterner stuff.

The three-storey, 36-room Cliff Hotel used to be a favourite with Western pilgrims in quest of the ‘authentic Holy Land flavour’, as also with Jerusalem Palestinians for wedding parties.

Along a wall not about to come down - a hotel no longer a hotel, but an outpost.

The Palestinian Authority has embarked on a new strategic drive to get renewed international recognition for the borders of the future Palestinian state. Last Thursday it gained backing for this approach from the Arab League.

Other than to movie aficionados, the refurbishing of an old cinema hall is no cause for great excitement.

'Make sure your father gets this,' the municipal inspector tells a ten-year-old boy at the gate of the concrete house in an alleyway in the Al-Bustan quarter of Silwan, a Palestinian neighbourhood right under the shadow of the walled Old City.

'Migrant workers bring with them a profusion of diseases - hepatitis, measles, tuberculosis, AIDS and drug addiction: Our critics can be as sanctimonious as they like, but unless we stop the wave of migrant workers, the whole character of the State of Israel, its Jewish character, will be under threat.'

'We knew something bad was about to happen when we saw the roadblocks being thrown up, and police everywhere. It soon came down the grapevine - the Israelis were demolishing more houses.'

Three Israeli soldiers, automatic rifles slung across their shoulders, are questioning a group of Palestinian builders. The top floors being added to the concrete house that lies right alongside Israel's security wall which divides off occupied East Jerusalem from Palestinian territory on the eastern side of the wall have evidently aroused some concern.