Posts Tagged east jerusalem
To Add Insult to Injury
Posted by Joseph Dana in Israel, Jerusalem on August 13th, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE TO ALL PRESS:
Evicted Palestinian families taken to court At 1500hrs (1400 GMT) today, the Hannoun and Ghawi families were served an order to appear in the District Court of Jerusalem at 1630hrs. The settlers that had moved into the Hannoun and Ghawi homes filed a restraining order for the Hannoun and Ghawi families to stay 150 metres from the homes.
The settlers had seized the houses an hour after more than 200 armed Israeli police invaded the houses and threw the Hannouns and Ghawis out into the streets on August 2, 2009. Since then, the families have been camped out on the sidewalk across their stolen homes, sleeping on mattresses, without causing any disturbances to the Jewish settlers.
They are still holding out hope that justice will be restored and the houses which they have always lived in will be restored to them.
h/t Ryan Linstrom
Sheikh Jarrah – In Memoriam
Posted by Joseph Dana in Israel, Jerusalem on August 10th, 2009
Last night in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah there was a vigil, a memorial to the families’ homes from which they were evicted. First they were refugees and now they are homeless. After weeks of legal battles, sit-ins and press conferences, several hundreds gathered to acknowledge a critical defeat in the battle over the future of this land and the two peoples who want to live here in peace.
Yes, the Supreme Court ruled, yes, the Palestinians were evicted in accordance with the law and yes, the Jews who moved in there did so legally. But this is a matter of the future viability of a Palestinian state, and the true test, or more correctly, disclosure of Israel’s true intentions and integrity. Assuming the Jews who moved into these houses (and now pray on the rooftops looking down on the newly homeless families in the street), did in fact live there at some point, this only strengthens the argument that all Palestinian refugees are entitled to reclaim their lost homes all over Israel. Israel’s legal system has set this precedent. It has given legal credibility to the 7 million Palestinians who once lived somewhere in Israel and cannot return.
Israel could not be making it any clearer that its policy is to allow, encourage and facilitate Jewish settlement anywhere and everywhere it wishes, right in the middle of Palestinian communities, with the ultimate aim of clearing them out.
How can Israel, in its claim to represent the Jewish people, who have experienced the worst forms of discrimination, violence, ghettoization and homelessness, now inflict it on another people? And what exactly is it trying to achieve? Have we heard any Israeli politician actually articulate what the objective is here, other than showing off the country’s ability to kick people out and take over whatever place they want? What does Israel think it will gain from these reprehensible actions?
Will Obama Please Step Up
Posted by Joseph Dana in Jerusalem on August 6th, 2009
The Fatah conference is underway in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. There has been no lack of controversy regarding the first conference held in over twenty years and the biggest headline to emerge is that Fatah is not about to relinquish their right to armed resistance against Israel’s forty two year occupation of the West Bank. Haaretz staff writer, Avi Issacharoff, had an interesting piece yesterday about the growing concern in Israel that another intifada is brewing.
“We hate to admit it, but the Palestinian Authority, as opposed to Israel, is keeping to the requirements of the road map and is operating against the “terror infrastructure.” In the past, one of the easiest tasks for a journalist in the territories was interviewing armed men. Today they cannot be found in the West Bank cities. The government of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad disbanded Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, and the services subordinate to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas are fighting an all-out war against the armed men of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.”
“It’s true that the West Bank has never been so quiet. But we must make no mistake; the situation remains fragile. In the opinion of many senior members of Fatah, in light of the dead end that characterizes the diplomatic contacts, the next explosion between Israel and the Palestinians is only a matter of time.”
With the East Jerusalem house evictions this week, the time for Obama to step up and engage with this conflict is now. The Jerusalem Post has even run an op-ed about the grave danger that the East Jerusalem evictions pose for all parties involved.
“The Americans raked us over the coals for that one a couple of weeks ago. Now there are the two Palestinian families – 53 people in all – being turned out of their homes by Israeli police, who are now guarding the proud Jews settling into their new second home.
If Obama and Co. were getting ready to blink, this should snap their eyes wide open to what’s at stake in the battle over the settlements. They’d better keep their eyes wide open until the battle’s over – until all settlement is frozen and the land, ultimately, is redivided – or the injustice and indecency may never end.”
Also in the news this week, Nefesh B’Nefesh has brought another flight full of new immigrants from North America with an untold number moving to the very West Bank settlements that help form the core obstacle to any peace process. If Obama does not act soon, he might be missing an opportunity to create a groundswell for a new peace process. Failure to act could lead to exactly the thing that would take the settlement issue off the table, another intifada.
Palestinians out, Jews in
Posted by Joseph Dana in Israel, Jerusalem on August 3rd, 2009
After receiving eviction notices last May, three Palestinian families constituting 53 people, including 20 children, were forcibly removed from their homes under High Court order at dawn on Sunday August 2. The Hanouns, the Rawis and the al-Ghawis, all families who fled their homes in West Jerusalem and became refugees during the 1948 War, have been living in their houses since 1956, when Jordan reached an agreement with UNRWA to resettle them.
They are now living on the streets, homeless. Just a week ago they were living inside their home and now there are Jewish settlers inside, exhibiting not the least bit of remorse for the homeless family just outside. The Hanoun family’s furniture was seized by Israeli forces and they are now responsible for paying the storage and mover fees. Meanwhile, the Jewish settlers are living with round-the-clock security, not allowing anyone near. At one house, the police actually had the nerve to tell us not to film too close, as we should respect the privacy of the new residents.
This is just one of several plans by various real estate groups such as Nahalat Shimon International and American businessmen such as Irving Moskowitz, to populate the areas surrounding the Old City with Jewish strongholds that sever Palestinian territorial contiguity in East Jerusalem. This prejudices any final resolution in which East Jerusalem would be the Palestinian capital. It is also in clear breach of Israel’s commitment under the Road Map. But these operations are backed by the Israel Lands Administration, the Jerusalem Municipality and the Israeli government, who are all working together to undermine any possibility for a two-state solution and are blatantly infringing on the basic human rights of the residents of what they deem to be the “united Jerusalem.”
Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem
Posted by Joseph Dana in Israel, Jerusalem on August 2nd, 2009
East Jerusalem is heating up. Israeli forces removed to families in Sheikh Jarrah this morning. Jewish settlers moved in shortly after. International, Israeli, and Palestinian protesters have been demonstrating throughout the day. I will be posting a proper video from the scene tomorrow afternoon. In the meantime, please see this report from Al Jazeera about the mornings events as well as my video report from two weeks ago about the situation.
Sheikh Jarrah Getting Warmer
Posted by Joseph Dana in Israel on July 27th, 2009
From the excellent blog by a Rabbis for Human Rights member, Ryan Linstrom. Yesterday settlers have occupied a house in Sheikh Jarrah with the cover of Israeli border police. This is the neighborhood that has been making news waves recently because of the involvement of millionaire right wing nut Irving Moskowitz.
Judaizing East Jerusalem
Posted by Joseph Dana in Israel, Jerusalem on July 19th, 2009
Co-written with Antony Loewenstein
Today roughly one hundred people gathered to protest the eviction of the Palestinian Hanoun family from their home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. They are the latest target of the increasing push to populate the area with Jewish settlers, hindering any possibility for a future Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem.
According to their website, the Hanoun’s are one of 27 families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood that are facing home eviction as part of a plan to establish a new Jewish settlement in the area. The Hanoun family was displaced from their home in Haifa after the Naqba of 1948 and currently consists of 18 people, including six children. They have lived in Sheikh Jarrah since 1956, when the Jordanian Government and UNRWA gave them houses as part of a project to help Palestinians forced to flee their properties.
International press and every major Israeli news outlet including the Jerusalem Post were on hand to hear the press conference held inside the Hanoun family home. This is not surprising given news today of the US state department informing the current Israeli envoy that Israel must halt all settlement construction in East Jerusalem. Prime Minister Netanyahu responded that Jerusalem will always be the united capital of Israel.
Later on, Hagit Ofran of Peace Now gave protestors and the media a brief history of another sign of Israel’s takeover in Sheikh Jarrah, the Shepherd Hotel. The hotel was bought by millionaire and close friend of Ehud Olmert, Irving Moskowitz, in the 1980s, with a plan to create a massive apartment complex for Jewish settlers. The city of Jerusalem has until recently denied permission to build such a complex.
Last month, permission was granted by newly instated mayor Nir Barkat to continue construction at the Shepherd Hotel, placing yet another portion of disputed land in Jewish hands and sending a message to Palestinians and the world that Israel is not a genuine partner in any bilateral, peace process.
What is so perplexing and enraging is that by continually implanting Jewish neighborhoods in the midst of Palestinian communities, Israel is sabotaging its own determination to be a permanent, Jewish-majority, internationally accepted, democratic state with defined borders.
cross posted at Mondoweiss
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Sheikh Jarrah-What Can You Do?
Posted by Joseph Dana in Israel, Jerusalem on December 16th, 2009
From Ta’ayush Members David Shulman and Amos Goldberg:
Dear friends,
As many of you know from our recent reports, rather terrible things are happening in Jerusalem. The Israeli government is pursuing a policy of forcing Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem and handing over their properties to Jewish settlers. The guiding idea is to plant colonies of fanatical Jewish settlers in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods. Israeli courts have recently sanctioned such a move in Sheikh Jarrah, where three Palestinian families have now been evicted from their homes; another 28 homes are under a real threat. Needless to say, only Jews are allowed to reclaim property from before 1948 (in the case of Sheikh Jarrah, from Ottoman times, over a hundred years ago); Palestinians have no hope of reclaiming any of the hundreds of homes in West Jerusalem that once belonged to them.
We recommend the following videos showing the evictions:
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east jerusalem, sheikh
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