The Palestinian residents of Al Sheikh Jarrah staging a sit-in in front of the Al Kurd house in Al Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
Nov 9, 2008
Adam Keller of the Israeli peace activist group, Gush Shalom, reported on this example of apartheid justice meted out to Arab citizens compared to Jewish citizens of Jerusalem, East and West. A few hours after speeches professing a desire and commitment to peace between Israelis and Palestinians by Israel’s leading politicians, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni, at a rally in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square, the police expelled the Al-Kurd Family from their home on behalf of extreme-right settlers.
This is an interesting case because it brings back the core injustice of 1948 when 800,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homes and villages in what is today Israel. After it was established, Israel passed a law, the 1950 “Absentee Properties Law”, in which it refused to recognize the title deeds to houses where Palestinians lived prior to the 1948; because these hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were essentially absent, most of whom living, where they live today, in refugee camps in various Arab countries and the Palestinian territories. It was reported by Jeff Halper that between 1948 and 1967, 3-5000 Palestinian landowners were murdered when they attempted to return to Israel and claim their homes.
As reported by Adam Keller, a few hours after the speeches in Rabin Square, the Al-Kurd family was ejected from their house in East Jerusalem.
Israeli police inside the yard of the Al-Kurd family
In the dark of night at about 4.30am, large police forces surrounded the home of the Al-Kurd Family at the Sheikh Jarah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, broke down the door and expelled family members from their home. Eight international volunteers from the ISM, citizens of the US, Canada, Britain and Sweden were detained. The Al-Kurd Family members left dispossessed and were temporarily housed by neighbors.
“I have arrived at the spot when I heard what happened, but there was little I could do except try to consolate the bitterly crying mother of this family, who was so terribly wronged by our country” said Yehiel Gernimann, activist of the Rabbis for Human Rights group.
The expulsion of the Al-Kurd Family was carried out in accordance with a court order recognizing the house as “Jewish Property” according to an Ottoman title deed from 1880. This is a clear and manifest discrimination, since the Al-Kurd Family are refugees from West Jerusalem, and the State of Israel refuses to recognize their title deed to the house where they lived prior to 1948; this, like the title deeds of hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians, was declared null and void in Israeli law under the 1950 “Absentee Properties Law”.
Conversely, old title deeds held by Jews are recognized as valid by Israeli courts, making Arab inhabitants into “illegal squatters” in the homes they have inhabited for decades. Some 500 Sheikh Jarah inhabitants face the threat of expulsion on much the same legal grounds. The drive to locate and take possession of such “old Jewish properties” in Sheikh Jarah is energetically coordinated by the settler association “Nahalat Shimon” – patronized by extreme right Knesser Member Benny Elon, an outspoken advocate of “Population Trensfer” (i.e. ethnic cleansing) of all Palestinians.
Several months ago the United States lodged a protest at Israel’s intention to expel the Al-Kurd family from their home, and implementation of the expulsion was at that time put off. But now, the Government of Israel is evidently trying to take advantage of the interregnum in Washington, with Bush being a “lame duck” and Obama not yet entered into the White House.
A few days later, Foreign Minister Livni went to Sharm A-Sheikh in order to “report to the Quartet on the progress of negotiations with the Palestinians”. It was suggested by Keller that if the Quartet representatives came to the Sheikh Jarah neighborhood to see the actual situation with their own eyes, they could have come to their own conclusions about the “progress of the negotiations”.