Tag: Jerusalem

By Jonathan Cook, Foreign Correspondent

To view original article, published by The National, click here

JERUSALEM: It must be the smallest Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories: just half a house. But Palestinian officials and Israeli human rights groups are concerned that it represents the first stage of a plan to eradicate the historical neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, cutting off one of the main routes by which Palestinians reach the Old City and its holy sites.

The home of Mohammed and Fawziya Khurd has been split in two since 1999 when the Israeli courts evicted their grown-up son Raed from a wing of the property. The elderly couple have been trying to regain possession, but were stymied last week when an Israeli high court backed the petition of a group of settlers and ordered the immediate eviction of the Khurds. The decision paves the way for the takeover of 26 multi-storey houses in the neighbourhood, threatening to make 500 Palestinians homeless.

The verdict has been denounced by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and in the past few days the Khurds have been visited by foreign diplomats, including from the United States. In a letter to consulates in Jerusalem, including those of the United States, Britain, France and Germany, Rafiq Husseini, Mr Abbas’s aide, warned that the takeover of the Khurds’ home was part of a wider drive to change the geography of Jerusalem by forcing out Palestinians and replacing them with Israeli settlers. Such a development would deal a death blow to already-strained peace negotiations, he wrote.

Today there are 250,000 Israeli Jews living illegally in East Jerusalem, and the Israeli government has announced that thousands more apartments are to be built – despite promises to the US government to freeze settlement growth.

Israeli human rights groups and Palestinian solidarity activists, meanwhile, have been staging a 24-hour vigil at the Khurds’ home in the hope of preventing the order’s enforcement.

According to Meir Margalit, an analyst on Israeli policies in Jerusalem, the Sheikh Jarrah evictions are part of a much bigger goal being pursued by shadowy settler groups, backed by the Israeli government, to establish wedges of Jewish settlement around the Old City and secure it for any future peace agreement.

“The settlers have submitted a plan to the Jerusalem municipality seeking the demolition of Sheikh Jarrah’s Palestinian homes to make way for the building of 200 apartments for settlers,” he said. “They have chosen one of the most sensitive sites in East Jerusalem: it’s full of Palestinian political and cultural institutions. Its takeover would contribute significantly to the encirclement of the Old City.”

The Khurds and other Palestinian families have been living in Sheikh Jarrah since the mid-1950s, when the Jordanian government and the United Nations allocated them land as refugees. All had been forced out of areas that became Israel in 1948.

After Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, however, the settler organisations began pressing their claims to former Jewish homes. A religious organisation, the Sephardi Jewry Association says it purchased Sheikh Jarrah’s lands in the 19th century. The families’ lawyers, on the other hand, say the land belongs to the Darwish family. The courts have been unable to authenticate the documents, which date to a murky period of land dealings.

Until last week’s decision, the courts had decided that the Palestinian residents should be allowed to stay in their homes as “protected tenants” until ownership could be determined.

However, the courts insisted that the families pay rent to a trust set up in case they found in favour of the Sephardi Association at a later date.

The families argue that, under the terms of the deal with the Jordanian government and United Nations, they were entitled to ownership of the properties after 30 years. The eviction order against the Khurds is believed to have been issued after Mohammed Khurd, 55 and bedridden, was unable to keep up his payments.

The Khurds say they have faced constant pressure since settlers moved in next door. “At first we were offered a lot of money to leave,” said Mrs Khurd, 62. “When we refused, the settlers started making our lives a hell. The family next door changes every few months to make it difficult for us to start legal proceedings.

“Armed Israeli guards have been posted on the path to our house and there are a network of surveillance cameras to watch our every move. Armed settlers have broken into the house, pointing their guns at us.

By Akiva Eldar

To view original article, published by Haaretz on the 25th July, click here

The United States this week filed an official protest with Israel for harming Palestinians, including the eviction of the al-Kurd family from their home in the Shimon Hatzadik complex in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

The U.S. also demanded explanations for the harassment of Palestinian residents in the West Bank by Israeli settlers.

A diplomatic source told Haaretz that the Foreign Ministry responded that the decision to evict the al-Kurd family was made under civilian jurisdiction, so the state has no standing to intervene in a matter still being heard by the Supreme Court.

Regarding harassment of Palestinians, Israel replied that the state regards this seriously and that law-enforcement officials take all necessary steps to prevent it and bring the perpetrators to trial.

The source said Washington expressed surprise at criticism from Jerusalem that the U.S. administration is dealing with “localized incidents” such as the case of the al-Kurd family and students would could not leave the Gaza Strip for studies abroad.

The diplomat said that handling such incidents is routine both for the embassy in Tel Aviv and the consulate in Jerusalem. He noted that the U.S. administration acts according to policy accepted by Israel that the Palestinian Authority should be assisted and its head Mahmoud Abbas and prime minister Salaam Fayyad strengthened. All the events in which the U.S. has intervened have clashed with that policy.

The administration recently received detailed reports of increased activity by a settler organization in East Jerusalem working to increase the Jewish presence in Arab neighborhoods such as Sheikh Jarrah, Jabal Mukkaber, Silwan and the Mount of Olives. The U.S. consulate in Jerusalem has been tracking new construction plans in those neighborhoods for the Jewish population and reporting on them to Washington.

The protest by the U.S. raises doubts on the authenticity of an Ottoman-era bill of sale on which the Jerusalem District Court relied in ruling that the Shimon Hatzadik property belongs to the Committee for the Sephardic Group. The committee transferred the property to a settler organization called “Shimon’s Estate” that sought to evict the family that has lived there since the early 1950s. The al-Kurd family are refugees from West Jerusalem.

MK Yossi Beilin (Meretz) this week submitted a parliamentary question to the prime minister on the al-Kurd eviction notice, which had been slated to be carried out on July 15. The eviction was delayed after the family’s lawyer requested an urgent hearing by the Supreme Court.

The question was passed around among cabinet ministers until it was returned to the prime minister, who asked Tourism Minister Ruhama Avraham Balila to respond in her role as cabinet liaison to the Knesset. “In the eyes of the prime minister,” Avraham Balila addressed Beilin, “and in my eyes, not to mention in your eyes as a former justice minister, a High Court of Justice ruling always decides such matters.”

By Akiva Eldar

To view original article, published in Haaretz, click here

The High Court of Justice last week upheld a ruling for the eviction of a Palestinian family from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, whose house is owned by religious Jews. The eviction spurred protest by senior Palestinian Authority officials, and diplomats from several consulates have already visited the house.

The Khurd family has lived in the contested building since 1956, when the area was under Jordanian control. After the area came under Israel’s control in 1967, the Committee of the Sephardi Jewry and the Committee of the Knesset of Israel – two religious bodies – presented the Israeli authorities with various documents showing that they had purchased the area during the Ottoman rule.

The Palestinian families residing there were allowed to stay on as protected tenants, until they stopped paying rent. This prompted the owners to file for their eviction at the Jerusalem District Court, which ruled in favor of the plaintiffs from the Nachlat Shimon non-profit organization.

The family appealed to the High Court of Justice, but the justices upheld the district court’s ruling. Following the ruling, Rafik Husseini, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, last week contacted a number of consulates saying that the eviction creates a legal precedent, which will allow the eviction of 25 other Palestinian families who are in the same legal situation.

Since the 1990s, Nachlat Shimon, which represents land owners as they are listed in the records of Israeli authorities, has been making its presence felt in buildings surrounding the tomb of Simeon the Just (or Shimon HaTzaddik) a High Priest during the time of the Second Temple. If the family is evicted, Nachlat Shimon will take over the property.

In his letter, Rafik Husseini said hundreds of Palestinian families whose legal heirs now reside in East Jerusalem own between them no less than 60 percent of the area of the western part of the capital. He went on to say that Israeli courts never ruled that any of them should receive any of their houses. Husseini called the move a drive aimed at changing the demographic and geographic conditions in the city’s eastern part by replacing Palestinians with “Israeli settlers.”

Following Husseini’s letter, diplomats from the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem visited the house, along with several other diplomats. Additionally activists from organizations such as Rabbis for Human Rights have set up protest vigils near the house, with the intention of physically preventing the eviction.