Israel Evicts Palestinian Families

[tekisui]

Source: Al Jazeera

Israeli security forces have forcibily evicted two Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem after a court rejected an appeal against their eviction.

The al-Ghawi and al-Hanoun families who were evicted on Sunday have been living in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood since 1956.

Israel has reportedly set aside the land their houses were built on for a planned hotel project.

The eviction comes amid international calls for Israel to halt settlement activity on occupied Palestinian land.

A large police force was involved in the operation in Sheikh Jarrah, one of the most sensitive and upmarket Arab neighbourhoods closest to the so-called Green Line which separates east and west Jerusalem.

more: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/08/2009825148146153.html

[ixion]

1. pathetic.

really.

And people wonder why I'm no fan of Israel.

[sharesunited]

2. This sounds like simple eminent domain, the same as exists in the States.

If you want to to come visit the holy land, no matter what your religion, you need a place to stay.

Hotel rooms for pilgrims might be an entirely worthwhile project.

However: Is there any information as to whether the displaced families received compensation for what was taken?

[IndianaGreen]

3. Eminent domain is not based on racist policies

or on an illegal occupation by a foreign power.

[sharesunited]

4. Are you ready to return New York State to the Mohawk, Mohican, Oneida and Seneca?

This is where principle and practice compete.

[azurnoir]

7. Are they asking for it to be returned?

is the US currently evicting people from occupied territory prior to negotiations for that same territory in an attempt to establish facts on the ground?

[sharesunited]

8. No, that all happened 300 years ago. The passage of time is a great healer.

[LeftishBrit]

10. Well, the fact that there might be a statute of limitations after 300 years...

is no excuse to turf people out of their homes NOW.

It was wrong when it was done to the Native Americans, but too late to do much about it now.

[sharesunited]

11. Without compensation, it is very unjust.

[Ken Burch]

40. That doesn't mean that if Israel can hang on to the Territories for 300 years, it's all acceptable.

The answer is acknowledgment that injustice was done. That's not that much to ask.

[Ken Burch]

41. There can be acknowledgment that a great wrong was done

and genuine reparations.

[Crunchy Frog]

6. Eminent domain exercized outside of your legitimate state borders.

[sharesunited]

9. 1948? 1967? 1973?

[aranthus]

12. It wasn't eminent domain. It;'s about who owns the property

The land was owned by the Sephardic Community Counsel prior to 1948. In Israel's War of Independence the Jordanians conquered the area, drove out the Jews, and then later gave the property to the Arab families (after they had paid the Jordanian government nominal rent). Then Israel conquered the area in 1967, and the Sephardic Community Counsel sued in Israeli courts for the return of the property. There was a settlement where the Sephardic Community regained title, but the families were allowed to remain as long as they paid rent (they could only be evicted if they stopped paying). They paid the rent for a number of years. Then, apparently at the urging of the PA, they stopped paying rent. So the Sephardic Community sued to have them evicted. Apparently the Arab defense was that they were the rightful owners. Hard to see how that would fly. The Arab families weren't the legitimate owners because they trace their ownership to the conquest of the land in a war of aggression by the Palestinians, Jordan and the other Arab states.

[subsuelo]

13. by that logic, Israelis can make no claim of land ownership in the region

since they stole it all from the indigenous Palestinian population through Israel's ongoing conquest of land

[aranthus]

14. Sure, if you live in the bizarro world.

In the real world, where Israel stole nothing, they have every right to the land. Stealing is the wrongful taking of property. That means that there can be just takings of property which aren't theft. That's why there's a difference between taking land in an aggressive war (stealing), and taking land in a defensive war (not stealing). Let's start at the beginning:

1. Pre-1947 the Jews bought land. They did not take any by force. Are you willing to admit that that isn't stealing?
2. In 1947, the Palestinians attacked the Jews, thereby starting the war. The Jordanians joined in and took the West Bank (stealing). The Israelis conquered other areas of Palestine in their war of defense (not stealing).
3. In 1967, the Jordanians again initiated an aggressive war against Israel. Israel counter attacked and took the West Bank (not stealing).

I know I'm not going to change your mind. You're deep in the anti-Israel camp. But neither am I going to pretend that your deluded world view is the truth.

And while we're at it. Why did the Jordanians have the right to drive the Jews out of their homes and give their land to Palestinians?

[subsuelo]

15. "In the real world, where Israel stole nothing"

Now *that* is bizarro world.

In this 'real world', the U.S. stole nothing from indigenous Native american tribes, either, right?

[aranthus]

16. Re-read my post.

I updated it, with an explanation. I see however the problem. You equate the Jewsish settlers who returned to their ancient homeland, bought land and built communities in Palestine with the Europeans who had no prior connection with the land, and came in the first instance and took it by force. Yeah, that's fair, honest and reasonable. So were the Jews "stealing" land when they bought it from the Arab owners? What about the Palestinians? Were they trying to steal land in 1947 when they attacked the Jews to drive them out of the country and take it all? Or was that legitimate eminent domain?

[subsuelo]

17. kind of like the U.S. playing victim

"Hey those evil Native Americans attacked us! We were just innocently buying up the land when they viciously attacked! We *must* defend ourselves!"

Same thing.

[aranthus]

18. Sure, in the bizarro world.

When did the Europeans have any connection to the Americas before the colonization? The Jews have been living in the Holy Land for thousands of years. It's the Jewish homeland.

When did the Spaniards or the French or the English buy land from the Native Americans? Maybe you know something about American history that I don't, but I sure don't remember reading that anywhere.

So be honest. Were the Jews who bought land in Palestine stealing? Is that what you think? What was stolen, when, and how?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

19. No, almost all of the Jews had not been living in the Holy Land for thousands of years.

There were 5000 Jews in what is now Israel and the occupied territories in the 16th century, 24,000 Jews in 1982, 60,000 in 1918, 500,000 in 1946 and over a million in 1949.

While some of Israel's land was purchased legitimately prior to Israel's founding, a great deal was stolen by force of arms at that point.

"Oh, that's what you meant. You are mistaken. I have no connection with Palestine. I have never been there. It does not interest me. My ancestors left it eighteen hundred years ago. What should I seek there? I think that only anti-Semites can call Palestine our fatherland." - Dr. Friedrich Loewenberg, the hero of Theodor Herzl's Altneuland.




Incidentally, I'm surprised that you aren't aware that there were plenty of *examples* of European settlers aquiring land from the Native Americans by trade (although that only represents a tiny fraction of the land they stole).

[Ken Burch]

42. Also, there's a real question about how the absentee landlord the land was "bought" from

acquired it.

That still needs to be addressed. We can't assume that the Ottoman invaders who ended up with the land actually paid the Arabs who lived on it for the title.

It's comparable to the absentee English landlords who held wide swaths of land in Ireland.

[LeftishBrit]

5. Disgusting. I hope that the pressure causes them to reverse the decision.

[Violet_Crumble]

23. I hope so too, but I don't think it'll happen...

It does appear that the govt of Nutty is less concerned with international pressure, including that of the US, than the previous Israeli govt was...

[henank]

20. More background to give balance

The housing complex in question is located in the Sheik Jarra neighborhood of eastern Jerusalem. The home was originally Jewish, but its Jewish occupants were chased out during countrywide anti-Jewish Arab riots in 1929. Arabs then squatted on the property, with one family, the Hejazi family, becoming the de facto occupants despite never having purchased the property.

Even though documentation proves the complex is owned by Jews and that Arabs have been squatting on it illegally for almost a century, Jewish groups still legally re-purchased the property from the Hejazi family. Following pressure from the Palestinian Authority, however, the family later denied selling the complex back to the Jews despite documentation and other evidence showing the sale went through.

Israel's court system, not exactly a friend of Jewish "settlers," twice ruled now the property undoubtedly belongs to Jews.

Many of the articles on the home use the terms "occupied" and "East Jerusalem." Reuters called it "occupied Arab East Jerusalem."

According to the United Nations, eastern sections of Jerusalem are not "occupied" but "disputed." Referring to the area as "Arab East Jerusalem" presupposes the outcome of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that have yet to take place and ignores British documentation that authenticates Jews outnumbered Arabs in eastern Jerusalem from the 1800's until Jews were expelled by Arabs in 1929.

[shira]

21. this background info. is a classic example of how media is used to incite hate against Israel

thanks for the info.

[Sezu]

24. Not just the media shira as you can see

from the majority of kneejerk posts here. Disgusting.

[Violet_Crumble]

22. Thanks for the perspective of the extremist settler types...

As you give no links to where you get this 'info' from, and there's bits that are clearly untrue (eg the United Nations definately views East Jerusalem as occupied and the only ones who use the silly 'disputed' term are twits who think Israel has a right to territory that isn't part of Israel), I won't act like a trusting guppie and lap it all up unquestioningly...

What I find incredibly hypocritical in responses of the type you've done is that while you think original ownership of a property trumps all, that only applies to Jews, and when it comes to Arabs who lost homes in Israel, you change yr tune...

[oberliner]

26. Aaron Klein - World Net Daily

I believe this is the original source of the material to which you are responding:

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=105779

[azurnoir]

29. This World Net Daily

World Net Daily Obama Birth Certificate Billboard Birthers Movement

World Net Daily was one of the first to lead me to President Obama’s stance on the Born Alive Infant Protection Act — which had me weighing heavily over whether to fill in the circle that said McCain/Palin or Obama/Biden up until the day I entered the voting booth. But this “Where’s the birth certificate?” billboard campaign from “Birthers”, like the crazy impassioned lady who turned a town hall meeting into a rally only missing the torches and ropes smacks of wild, I’ll-use-euphemisms-like-citizen-to-disguise-what-I-really-want-to-say racism to me

http://www.paulanealmooney.com/world-net-daily-obama-birth-certificate-billboard-birthers-movement-ahh-this-is-why-republicans-lost-me-as-a-voter/1215/

[Violet_Crumble]

30. LOL. I can't believe any DUer would use WND as a source for anything....

WND are a bunch of raving lunatics....

[LeftishBrit]

32. Thanks for info. I would not trust anything published in that journal.

They would make the Daily Mail look left-wing, and at the moment are fanatically promoting Birther crap.

[Sezu]

27. I guess the UN cartographers are "twits."

http://alturl.com/fzva
Care to admit your mistake? And your bias?

[Violet_Crumble]

31. Wrong. The UN cartographers didn't title that Wiki thing...

Some anonyWikithingy did. If you go back to the source of the map, it doesn't have a title. http://www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/map/profile/israel.pdf

Though if you go to Google and do a search on the UN and East Jerusalem, you'll easily find many instances that prove that the UN considers East Jerusalem to be occupied, not disputed....

[parkia00]

25. So this is basically a case ...

of the right of return for the Jewish families driven out at the point of a gun those many years before?

[Ken Burch]

46. Wrong. Most of the settlers were born in Brookly, Miami or Los Angeles

And if they were born there, nobody ever did a damn thing to them.

[azurnoir]

28. Why did someone else have to provide a link? n/t

[Recursion]

37. I'm always amused by the term "originally"

"Originally" only ever goes back to when the group in question owned the land in question.

[Lakrosse]

33. they didn't have the deed, they didn't pay rent

so there goes.

And stop quoting Al-Jazeera, which is an islamist propaganda network.

[Sezu]

34. Only Israelis are expected to give up

and roll over when the squatters' deeds are false and the rent isn't paid.

[tekisui]

35. You are wrong about Al Jazeera.

They are more credible than the US M$M.

[Lakrosse]

36. yes, right

maybe you should go to MEMRI and see how "credible" they are.

[Howardx]

39. memri is a zionist propaganda group

see how that works?

[Ken Burch]

43. You've made interesting posts here, tekisui

Check your pm's in a moment.

[Violet_Crumble]

45. What yr saying about Al-Jazeera is complete crap...

Clearly you don't have any knowledge of Al-Jazeera. It's most definately not an islamist propaganda network and that sounds like the words of people who have a problem with Al-Jazeera solely because it's Arab. I doubt anyone here is clueless enough to believe you, but just in case they are, here's some actual info (as opposed to RW sounding untruths) about Al-Jazeera. It's an independent network based in Qatar and in its time it's pissed off just about everyone including Israel, the PA, the Bush govt (they liked it prior to Sept 11), and most of the govts of Arab states. It's doing something that I would have thought Americans concerned about govt controlled news sources in the Arab states would support, which is providing independent news that isn't controlled by the govts. Instead I see people like you attacking it with completely untrue statements...

Oh, and welcome to DU. Just a word of friendly advice, but it's really lame and bossy looking to go around demanding that DUers stop quoting news sources you have a bee in yr bonnet about...

[Donald Ian Rankin]

38. It appears Israel does believe in the right of return for the displaced after all...

NT

[ProgressiveMuslim]

44. Israel has had quite a year in 2009.

Is there any horror or despicable act that can't be justified?

At least we're all getting to see what Zionism in action looks like.