Jonathan Cook

Noise but no action from US over family’s eviction. The middle-of-the-night eviction last week of an elderly Palestinian couple from their home in East Jerusalem to make way for Jewish settlers is a demonstration of Israeli intent towards a future peace deal with the Palestinians.

Mohammed and Fawziya Khurd are now on the street, living in a tent, after Israeli police enforced a court order issued in July to expel them.

The couple have been living in the same property in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood since the mid-1950s, when East Jerusalem was under Jordanian control. The United Nations allotted them the land after they were expelled from their homes in territory that was seized by Israel during the 1948 war.

Since East Jerusalem’s occupation by Israel in 1967, however, Jewish settler groups have been waging a relentless battle for the Khurds’ home, claiming that the land originally belonged to Jews.

In 1999, the settlers occupied a wing of the house belonging to the couple’s son, Raed, though the courts subsequently ruled in favour of the family. The eviction order against the settlers, unlike that against the Khurds, was never enforced.

The takeover of the Khurds’ house is far from an isolated incident. Settlers are quietly grabbing homes from Palestinians in key neighbourhoods around the Old City of Jerusalem in an attempt to pre-empt any future peace deal with the Palestinians.

What makes the case of the Khurd family exceptional is that it has attracted the attention of Western consulates, particularly those of Israel’s important allies, that is, the United States and Britain. They have appealed without success to the Israeli government to intercede.

In particular, the diplomats are concerned that the takeover of the Khurds’ home will set a dangerous precedent, freeing settler groups to wrest control of most of Sheikh Jarrah. The settlers plan to oust more than 500 Palestinians from the neighbourhood and build 200 apartments for Jewish families.

If the settlers can take control of other areas, such as Silwan, Ras al-Amud and the Mount of Olives, the Old City and its holy sites would be as good as sealed off not only to Palestinians in the West Bank – as is the case already – but also to nearly 250,000 Palestinians in the outlying suburbs of East Jerusalem.

Because the Palestinians expect East Jerusalem and its holy places to be the core of their state, the Sheikh Jarrah judgment effectively offers the settlers a blocking veto on any future negotiations.

That may be one reason why the Israeli government has shown little inclination to intervene in cases like that of the Khurds. In Israeli law, all of Jerusalem, including the eastern half of the city, is the “indivisible” capital of the Jewish state.

The eviction order also worries Western diplomats because it opens up a Pandora’s box of competing land claims that will make it impossible for Palestinian negotiators to sign up to a deal on the division of Jerusalem.

The Palestinian Authority has already pointed out to the consulates that nearly two-thirds of West Jerusalem’s land was owned by Palestinians before the creation of Israel. Fawziya Khurd, for example, lived in Talbieh, in what is now the city’s western half, before 1948.

If the settlers can make property claims in East Jerusalem based on title deeds that pre-exist 1948, why cannot Palestinians make similar claims in West Jerusalem?

The US involvement in the Khurd case demonstrates its desire to mark its red lines in East Jerusalem. The concern is that Israeli actions on the ground are seeking to unravel the outlines of an agreement being promoted by Washington to create some kind of circumscribed Palestinian state.

In the US view, the basis of such a deal is an exchange of letters between George W. Bush and Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister at the time, in spring 2004 in which the US president affirmed that Israel would not be expected to return to the armistice lines of 1949. Instead, he declared that Israel would be able to hold on to its “population centres” in the West Bank – code for the established settlement blocs.

As a result, the current US administration has turned a blind eye to continuing construction in the main settlements, home to most of the West Bank’s 250,000 settlers. The unstated agreement between Tel Aviv and Washington is that these areas will be annexed to Israel in a future peace deal.

In an indication of Israel’s confidence about the West Bank settlements, the Israeli media reported at the weekend that Ehud Barak, the defence minister and the leader of the Labour Party, had personally approved hundreds of new apartments for the settlers in the past few months.

The separation wall is being crafted to include these blocs, eating into one tenth of the West Bank and leaving only a few tens of thousands of settlers on the “wrong side”.

For the time being, the US is showing indecision only about two settlement-cities, Ariel and Ma’ale Adumim. If the wall encompasses them, it will effectively sever the West Bank into three parts.

In relation to East Jerusalem, the White House has so far appeared to favour maintaining the status quo. That would entail the eastern half of the city being carved up into a series of complex zones, or “bubbles” as they have been described in the Israeli media.

Another 250,000 Jewish settlers live in East Jerusalem, though almost all of them reside in their own discreet colonies implanted between Palestinian neighbourhoods. These settlements are considered so established by Israelis that most of their inhabitants do not regard themselves as settlers.

However, the more ideological settlers of the kind taking over homes in Sheikh Jarrah refuse to accept partition of the city on any terms. They are trying to erode the Palestinians’ chances of ever controlling their own neighbourhoods in the eastern half of the city.

Backed by powerful allies in the courts, government and municipality, the settlers look set to continue expanding in East Jerusalem.

Nir Barkat, the millionaire businessman who was elected mayor of Jerusalem last week, forged close ties with some of the most extreme figures in the city’s settlement movement during his campaign.

Like his chief rival for the mayoralty, he has promised to build a new Jewish neighbourhood, called Eastern Gate, that will be home to at least 10,000 settlers on land next to the Palestinian neighbourhood of Anata.

The move, much like the eviction of the Khurds, has been greeted with silence from the government. Both developments are a sign of Washington’s powerlessness to force even the limited concessions it expects from Israel in East Jerusalem.

Palestinian family denied even half a house
By Jonathan Cook

The Khurd case is just one of several fronts being pursued by extremist Jewish organisations.

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 U.S. government to freeze settlement growth.

Israeli human rights groups and Palestinian solidarity activists, meanwhile, have been staging a 24hour 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.

“The family next door makes noise through the night to disturb us, and brings large parties of settler children to play on our shared balcony as though they were on a school outing. We have even seen them put up posters of Palestinians and encourage their children to shoot at them with toy guns.”

Rabbi Arik Ascherman, director of Rabbis for Human Rights, which has taken a keen interest in the case since 2001, says official policy towards the Khurds reveals a double standard.

“In claiming back what they say are Jewish properties from before 1948, the settlers are opening up a Pandora’s box. Before 1948, Fawziya’s family was from Talbieh, now in West Jerusalem, and her husband Mohammed’s family lived in Jaffa, next to Tel Aviv. Do the settlers want these refugees making similar claims for the return of their old properties in Israel?”

The Palestinian Authority has pointed out to the foreign consulates that nearly two-thirds of the land in West Jerusalem was owned by Palestinians before 1948. Human rights groups also note that it is against international law to change the legal status of occupied land. None of the consulates has responded officially, although they have made visits to the area.

Behind the settler families is an organisation known as Nakhalat Shimon, founded by Benny Elon, a former cabinet minister and leader of the Moledet Party, which seeks the expulsion of Palestinians. He recently stated: “Building Jewish neighbourhoods next to open areas [in Jerusalem] will prevent invasion and illegal construction by Palestinians who live near the Old City.”

The settlers have recruited a large number of religious supporters because they claim a cave in Sheikh Jarrah as the resting place of a famous rabbi from 2,000 year ago.

The Khurds are far from alone in their plight. Twenty-five homes are under similar threat. Maher Hanoun, his three brothers and their families were forced out of their large home in 2002 when settler groups brought an action against them. The courts overturned the order in 2006. “My home was boarded up for four years while the courts decided who owned the land. So far the judges have not reached a decision, but the verdict against the Khurds puts all of us at risk again,” he said.

Mr Margalit points out that the Khurd case is just one of several fronts being pursued by extremist Jewish organisations keen to settle Sheikh Jarrah.

Israeli officials have been leasing an olive grove belonging to the Arab Hotels Co. to a settler group called Ateret Cohanim in a deal the local Haaretz newspaper recently termed “underhand”. Together with a right-wing U.S. Jewish millionaire, Irving Moskowitz, who has bought the Shepherd’s Hotel on nearby Mount Scopus, the settlers hope to build 250 flats on the grove.

“For the settlers, Sheikh Jarrah is the link they need between the western half of the city and neighbouring Mount Scopus. Although they seem to be acting on their own initiative in this case, they are in fact doing the dirty work of the government.”

The settlers next to the Khurds refused to comment. However, a friend, Shira Ganz, 32, an immigrant from Ukraine who has been squatting in an empty Palestinian home nearby with her husband and three young children, said the families were committed to living in Sheikh Jarrah. “It’s written in the Bible that we have a right to everywhere in this land, and here we are only minutes from the Western Wall and the Temple Mount. We are not frightened of living next to the Palestinians. If we were, we would leave the promised land and move to Britain or the US.”

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His new book is “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net. This article originally appeared in The National, published in Abu Dhabi.

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Sources:
http://www.redress.cc/palestine/jkook20081121
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/print.php?newid=145966