I hear it’s all the rage on the news everywhere. Everywhere but in Israel, apparently. I asked around today and the Israelis I know could only say “yeah, wasn’t there something with a couple of houses in Jerusalem? no idea what though”.
Since it was all over the place online, I was trying to figure out what on earth were they fighting about this time around.
So, with some help from Twitter friends who helped with some links, here’s what I found out. BTW, most of this is based on this website: Stand Up for Jerusalem. I found their coverage to be at least factual, which is more than I can say for most articles/blog posts about this. As a disclaimer: the site officially supports the Palestinian families.
So, here it is in a nutshell -
Once upon a time in East Jerusalem… Jordan takes over the neighborhood after the British Mandate leaves, and following the 1948 war.
With Palestinian refugees in need of housing – houses in the Sheikh Jarrach neighborhood are given by Jordan to UNRWA (the UN refugee agency). UNRWA later gives the houses to several Palestinian families.
1967 – the Six Days War – Israel conquers the area and annexes East Jerusalem (a step that never receives international recognition). Right-wing religious Israelis are quick to start making claims to the entire neighborhood where those houses are located. They actually produces papers going back to the Ottoman period showing ownership to the land.
1972 – these right-wing groups take the Palestinians living in the houses to court, asking for them to be evicted. The court rules against them. Believe it or not, but ever since then, the houses are in dispute at Israeli courts – 37 years!
During these years, there are court rulings going both ways. At some point – and the Palestinians say they have been manipulated/cheated into this by their lawyer at the time – Jewish ownership was established and the Palestinian families declared “protected tenants”. Although the Palestinians were quick to reject this settlement (signed by their lawyer, who obviously should be sued for malpractice), they have amazingly been made to pay rent to the Jewish organizations who made the claim on the houses!
In the mid-1990′s, a new name appears, a Palestinian by the name of Mr. Hejazy with his own papers dating back to the Ottoman period. Lovely. The authenticity of these papers was later questioned by the court, but… a careful translation of the Ottoman documents presented by the Jewish side showed that they too never had real ownership on the land… only a lease.
Now get this, the reason these families are being evicted, technically, is failing to pay rent… rent which they say they should not pay, as the house is their property, given to them by the Jordanian government and UNRWA.
Lovely story, don’t you think? (yes, that’s sarcasm).
If you were a fan of L.A. LAw, I hope you enjoyed this recap.
So, the current right-wing extremist government and the Jewish settlers had a nice excuse on their hands. “Hey, the court ruled these people should be evicted for not paying the rent. Nothing to do with ideaology! honestly”! As the government spokeperson described it, this was just a legal dispute “between two private parties over who had title to a property in East Jerusalem”. Umm, yeah, sure.
The settlers are suddently in support of the Supreme court, and the government and police are in a rush to carry out its orders. How lovely. The policemen went into this one with zeal, and violently and brutally evicted the famlies. It looked bad – it was bad. We’re talking about families who grew up in those houses for decades – it was their home.
Now, IMHO, had we sane government, this was just the kind of “private dispute” where the government should have stepped in and prevented the eviction of families. Why? because no matter what the dry law says, sometimes you have to be smart. To me, it’s crystal clear that evicting the Palestinian families goes against the interests of Israel and as such, the government should have stopped it. It’s a question of the benefit of the greater public.
Very obviously, this government has a different view of the interests of Israel. It has few red lights and supports brutal treatment of Palestinians – having quite a different end goal to Jerusalem than I would like to see.
on Aug 4th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
What a tangled web we weave. Thanks for laying out the legal history – as if that helped, lol.
The Law can be an ass, as many are wont to say. But the evictions of a family who have grown up there just plain looks bad. I am not altogether certain the current rulers in Israel realize the image they have been consistently producing overseas. There have been a series of arguably vile actions both in war and in the issue of the settlements which are disturbing a wide swath of citizens in America and – as always it seems – in Europe. These PR disasters are not helping their cause. In fact, if anything, it appears the mantle of the most neo con country in the world has shifted from us to you guys. That’s not a good thing. I realize this is probably something less than what it seems, but who cares? I feel the emboldened Right Wing is off the starting line and running on their own over there. That’s the same group who thought invading Iraq was a crackerjack idea.
on Aug 4th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
You leave out that the Ottoman papers were forged ..
on Aug 4th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
I also saw a headline about the eviction of the Palestinian families on the online edition of the German weekly Der Spiegel. I have to admit I haven’t read the article yet, due to time problems that keep me from blogging myself. The days are just packed, aren’t they?!
And even though I enjoyed reading the facts I don’t want to wade into the marshy grounds of property law or tenancy law. Just as much, to hand the apparent owner of the property a title to expel these families because of arrears of rent has to me the same taste as to convict Al Capone on reasons of tax evasion.
But fact is, law and politics need to be kept apart. This is not possible when it comes to international law. But it is essential and vital for private, public and criminal law as political opinions change as time goes by yet the foundations of living together and society must not change their meanings once the political rulers change their seats. It would result in chaos and nobody would be sure what is still allowed and what are rights and duties.
That does not mean that I approve of the eviction or the way it was carried out. But the enforcement of a legal title gained in a court room is not done by the judicial branch but the executive branch. And while a government mustn’t try to influence the judges other than by making new laws, it sure has influence on the execution of legal titles and whether it is favorable or not to rather compensate one side for a title that is not executable for the sake of the country.
OK, that was very dry. But just as you showed with your fact list, it is very important to keep things apart and look at them one after the other to reach a stringent argumentation. ~Aviva
on Aug 4th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
I was one of those Israelis who wasn’t really sure what was going on, so thanks for clearing it up. Scary stuff.
on Aug 5th, 2009 at 3:06 am
Ita, I mentioned that the court questioned the authenticity of the papers presented by Hejazy.I don’t know about “forged”. I imagine that if someone were to actually present the court with forged documents – that could be proven to be forged – they’d be in jail. I heard the “forged” claim but could find no proof to it. If you have a link to any, please do share
As I mentioned, the papers presented by the Jewish side have also been questioned. While they seem to be authentic, looks like they don’t really show ownership to the place, but merely a lease.
Makes you wonder just how efficient those Ottomans were. Hey, maybe we should let Turkey solve this mess?
on Aug 5th, 2009 at 3:56 am
Aviva, I liked the Capone comparison. I agree, it does look like the government is using a technical offense to generate something larger. But like you said, it’s hard to blame the court.
Seems to me, and I am still looking for verification on that one, that they “went beyond the call of duty” with implemetation here. Sounds like they evicted more houses and families than they had court orders for. I am not sure about this part though.
on Aug 9th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
There is a simple truth being avoided by everyone who is sobbing for these palestinians.
Israeli Mom you seem to forget that if it was left up to these people who are being evicted that you now feel so sorry for, you would not have a country (Israel) to call your own.
These islamofanatic palestinians would kill you in a heartbeat (as they would all israelis) in the name of their devils religion of islam.
Concern for these palestinians is disgusting to me (and i am a non religious christian armenian American). Every single old & young palestinian would give the order to kill you and your children,(including your cats) and would die rather than ever admit that you are the rightful citizens of Israel.
Wake you sob sister fool, you are signing your own death warrants with your ridiculous concern for people who would kill you in a second.
If people like you are the next generation of Israeli then the end of Israel as a country will be coming very soon.
on Aug 29th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
@Al Walker
Mr the non religious Christian Armenian American! have you ever been to the Muslim world? Where did you learn about the islamofanatic Palestinians? Whats the subject of your message?
Unfortunately, I think this is a prejudice for Muslims and Palestinians which resembles to the hostility lived by Jews at Nazi times.