Another Guardian essay falsely charging Israel with ethnically cleansing Jerusalem Palestinians

...Finally, the charge that Palestinians are being ethnically cleansed from east Jerusalem is easily contradicted by population statistics. Whereas in 2007 there were 208,000 Palestinians in east Jerusalem, today there are roughly 293,000. So, over the course of merely seven years, the Palestinian population of east Jerusalem has increased by over 40%.

Adam Levick..
ukmediawatch.org..
19 April '15..

There are multiple distortions, errors and misrepresentations of fact throughout an 1800 word essay published by Teju Cole at The Guardian on April 17th, titled ‘Slow violence, cold violence – Teju Cole on East Jerusalem‘. However, the most egregiously false charge leveled at Israel by Cole – a writer and literary critic who has contributed to the New York Times, New Yorker, Financial Times, and The Atlantic – is that Palestinians are being ethnically cleansed from Jerusalem.

Here are the relevant passages.

As in other neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem – Har Homa, the Old City, Mount Scopus, Jaffa Gate – there is a policy at work in Sheikh Jarrah. This policy is two-fold. The first is the systematic removal of Palestinian Arabs, either by banishing individuals on the basis of paperwork, or by taking over or destroying their homes by court order.

…

The second aspect of the policy is the systematic increase of the Jewish populations of these neighbourhoods

This two-fold policy, of pushing out Palestinian Arabs and filling the land with Israeli Jews, is recognised by all the parties involved. And for such a policy, the term “ethnic cleansing” is not too strong: it is in fact the only accurate description.

First, it’s important to note that Jews were the ones ethnically cleansed from east Jerusalem following the Jordanian occupation of that section of the city in the aftermath the 1948 war. That’s the only reason why east Jerusalem was – for the first time in the city’s history – Jew-free between 1949 and 1967, thus giving rise to the media misnomer of a “historically Arab east Jerusalem”.

(Continue Reading)

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Julius - Breaking the silence on Jewish property rights

Lyn Julius..
The Times of Israel..
03 May '12..

This Lag BaOmer, Jewish pilgrims will be flocking to the tomb of a Second Temple-era high priest, Simeon the Just (Shimon Hatzaddik), in East Jerusalem. But the celebrations will be subdued compared to times gone by: in the 19th century, witnesses report that the entire city, in which Jews were a majority, took part in a massive festival, watched by Christians and Muslims. There was candle lighting, dancing, prayers, haircuts for children. The pilgrims made donations according to the weight of the trimmed hair.

In 1876 Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities in Jerusalem jointly purchased the site next to Shimon Hatzaddik’s tomb. They built dwellings for the pilgrims on part of the site. The Jewish residents of some 100 homes were among the first to be expelled when hostilities broke out at the end of 1947. Arab families moved into the empty Jewish homes. From 1949 to 1967 Jews could not visit the holy sites under Jordanian rule — a violation of the 1949 armistice agreement.

This year’s celebrations will take place against a backdrop of legal wrangling over the ownership of Shimon Hatzaddik, Nahalat Shimon and Jewish neighborhoods adjoining the Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Over the last few years, human rights and left-wing groups have held weekly demonstrations protesting Jewish settlement in “Arab East Jerusalem.”

Fresnozionism - Women harassed by Arabs, leftists

Fresnozionsim.org..
17 March '12..

It’s been an open secret among pro-Palestinian activists that the attitudes of the people they are trying to liberate from ‘occupation’ are somewhat less than enlightened. A recent article in Ha’aretz details the complaints of some female international and Israeli activists who have found themselves demeaned, sexually harassed, and even raped by their Arab counterparts.

I am sure that the situation is even worse than described in the left-wing Ha’aretz newspaper, whose description is bad enough.

There are also complaints against left-wing Israeli activists, and fury at an incredibly vulgar poster created by the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity movement. Even women sharing their political viewpoint were outraged by the normalization of anti-woman violence implicit in the posters.

The usual excuses are being made. That women should understand that the goal of ‘ending the occupation’ is more important than these unfortunate phenomena, and they should be quiet. Or even that the Arabs (does this go for the non-Arab leftists too?) have been damaged by ‘occupation’ and therefore it is, naturally, the fault of Israel and particularly of ‘settlers’.

Similar claims are made by anti-Israel gay activists that ‘occupation’ causes Palestinian homophobia, while Israel’s tolerance of gays and lesbians is cynical ‘pinkwashing‘.

Fresnozionism - Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity wants unilateral ‘Palestine’ declaration

Fresnozionism.org
15 July '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/07/sheikh-jarrah-solidarity-wants-unilateral-palestine-declaration/


NGO Monitor reports:

JERUSALEM – The Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement (SJSM), in cooperation with “flightilla” activists who are part of the Global BDS movement, [today] will hold a demonstration beginning at Jaffa Gate in support of a Palestinian unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) at the UN in September. The UDI represents the opposite path of direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority to end the conflict, says Jerusalem-based research institution NGO Monitor.

“The SJSM and other groups are funded via the New Israel Fund, which promotes a two [state] solution and Zionist principles. In contrast, as Palestinian leader Abbas wrote in his New York Times op-ed, unilateral recognition via the UN ‘would pave the way for the internationalization of the conflict’ and for pursuing ‘claims against Israel at the United Nations, human rights treaty bodies and the International Court of Justice.’ This strategy is the antithesis of the direct negotiations necessary for a stable peace between Israel and Palestinians,” says Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor.

Here is how Ishay Rosen-Zvi of SJSM describes it:

This march will not be yet another demonstration in support of the negotiations; not a call for an end to violence nor for a bilateral two-state solution. We’ve had enough of those. This time Israelis, Jews and Arabs, will show our support for the unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence expected in September; a free state in the 1967 borders, with its capital in East Jerusalem. No more favors, thank you very much.

SJSM has been holding weekly demonstrations in Jerusalem for about two years in support of Arab squatters in the Sheik Jarrah / Shimon ha-Tzadik neighborhood, after Israel’s Supreme Court — normally very protective of Arab rights — decided that they could not continue to live rent-free in property owned by Jews.

However, their anti-Zionist ideology extends far beyond squatters’ ‘rights’. By calling for a UDI, they are in essence demanding that Israel surrender control of the territories with no agreement from the Arabs on

- security arrangements,

- recognition of the Jewish state,

- end of the conflict,

- end of Arab claims against Israel, especially for ‘right of return’.

CAMERA - Flotilla Passenger Hagit Borer's Selective Vision in LA Times

Hagit Borer

Tamar Sternthal 
CAMERA
Middle East Issues
28 June '11

The Los Angeles Times, which recently gave a platform (yet again) to a Hamas leader, now gives space to an Israeli-American participant of the Gaza flotilla in support of Hamas. The Hebrew word "borer," refers to the act of selection, and that is exactly what USC linguistics professor Hagit Borer engages in this week in the LA Times -- selection of the facts ("Getting on board with peace in Israel," June 26, 2011).

She bemoans the fact that today's Jerusalem is "different" than the city she grew up in before 1967, charging that now "It is not [the Palestinians'] Jerusalem, for it has been taken from them." Nevermind that the city is now more Arab and less Jewish than it was on the eve of the Six Day War. Nevermind that Arab building has outpaced Jewish building in the city since 1967. Nevermind that no part of Jerusalem was ever ruled by Palestinians.

About Sheik Jarrah, she selectively reports:

In Sheik Jarrah, a neighborhood built by Jordan in the 1950s to house refugees, Palestinian families recently have been evicted from their homes at gunpoint based on court-sanctioned documents purporting to show Jewish land ownership in the area dating back some 100 years.

Contrary to Borer's historical inversion (she writes of "the Jewish neighborhood of Shimon Hatzadik, as Sheik Jarrah has been renamed"), the Jewish presence at the site long preceded the 1950s arrival of Palestinian refugees. As reported by Nadav Shragai for the JCPA:

For hundreds of years the Jewish presence in the area centered around the tomb of Shimon HaTzadik (Simon the Righteous), one of the last members of the Great Assembly (HaKnesset HaGedolah), the governing body of the Jewish people during the Second Jewish Commonwealth, after the Babylonian Exile . . . .


For years Jews have made pilgrimages to his grave to light candles and pray, as documented in many reports by pilgrims and travelers. While the property was owned by Arabs for many years, in 1876 the cave and the nearby field were purchased by Jews, involving a plot of 18 dunams (about 4.5 acres) that included 80 ancient olive trees.10 The property was purchased for 15,000 francs and was transferred to the owner through the Majlis al-Idara, the seat of the Turkish Pasha and the chief justice. According to the contract, the buyers (the committee of the Sephardic community and the Ashkenazi Assembly of Israel) divided the area between them equally, including the cave on the edge of the plot.


Dozens of Jewish families built homes on the property. On the eve of the Arab Revolt in 1936 there were hundreds of Jews living there. When the disturbances began they fled, but returned a few months later and lived there until 1948. When the Jordanians captured the area, the Jews were evacuated and for nineteen years were barred from visiting either their former homes or the cave of Shimon HaTzadik.

(Read full "... Borer's Selective Vision in LA Times)

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NGO Monitor to NIF: Explain funding for Sheik Jarrah Solidarity Movement

NGO Monitor
March 01, 2011

http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article.php?id=3289

Group calls for “liquidation” of the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund

JERUSALEM – In contrast to its recent moral guidelines, the New Israel Fund (NIF) is involved in the funding of a group that calls for the “liquidation or fundamental change of organizations that contribute to the dispossession of Arabs, including the Jewish Agency, the Jewish National Fund, and the Israel Lands Authority.” NIF currently channels funds to the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement, which has embraced this radical agenda, notes Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor.

“The New Israeli Fund claims to love Israel and to oppose boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS),” says Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor. “But at the same time, NIF also provides funding to a group that campaigns for the “liquidation” of organizations such as the Jewish Agency and Jewish National Fund (JNF). One of NIF’s new funding guidelines states that funding will not go to groups that ‘promote anti-democratic values.’ NIF must end the secret funding processes and publicly disclose how they see funding of the Sheikh Jarrrah Solidarity Movement as contributing to coexistence and mutual understanding.”

NGO Monitor notes that Sara Benninga, an organizer for the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Group, accuses Israel of “fascism,” “ethnic discrimination against its residents,” “blatant injustice and discrimination,” and “national and racial prejudices.” Protesters at the group’s rallies also have held signs declaring “Apartheid is here.” (Note: This page has been removed from the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity website.)

“NIF has made an important and positive contribution to Israeli society,” Steinberg adds. “But this does not excuse funding for radical political advocacy groups involved in demonization. NIF must choose between ending this relationship with the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement, and repudiating the group’s offensive rhetoric, or ending the pretense of promoting a pro-Israel and pro-Zionist agenda.”

Read NGO Monitor’s Recommended Guidelines for NIF.


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Quite Unsettling

Yisrael Medad
My Right Word
10 January '11


It seems that

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations said that “inserting settlers into Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem” undermined prospects for addressing the city’s status.

He has it backwards.

It is that Arabs had inserted themselves into Jerusalem, the 3000-year old capital of the Jewish nation and it was they who expelleds the last of the Jewish residents from the Old City in May 1948, refusing to allow them to return for over 19 years under an illegal Jordanian occupation.

Peace was undermined by the Mufti whose house was demolished to make way for the construction of a new residential project, one that will permit 20 families to live where just one lived previously.


That one was first the infamous Nazi-collaborator Mufti, Haj Amin El-Husseini. Then the Antonius couple. The widow, Katy, eventually taking into her bed there the British Military Commander of the Palestine Mandate, Evelyn Barker.

Isabel Kershner keeps up the propaganda by writing there:

Although it is mostly populated by Palestinians, nationalist Jewish Israelis have moved into a number of houses there in recent years, evicting the Palestinian residents after Israeli courts ruled that the properties had belonged to Jews before the establishment of the state of Israel and the Jordanian takeover of East Jerusalem in 1948.

That the Jewish residents of the area, who built their homes there beginning in the 1870s when it wasn't even a neighborhood, purchasing the land from Arabs, were evicted is missing. Somehow, these nasty verbs such as "demolished" and "evicted" never get applied to Jews. Nor "belonged".

(Read full "Quite Unsettling")

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Toppled Palestinian ‘Landmark’ Symbolized Hate

Jonathan S. Tobin
Commentary/Contentions
10 January '11

It says something about the way much of the world views the rights of Jews to live in Jerusalem that the erection of new homes in parts of that city is considered such a terrible provocation. Thus, the new housing project in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of the city is generally reported as an outrageous provocation, even though the only reason this area is usually described as “predominantly Arab” or, more outrageously, “traditionally Arab” is because from 1949 to 1967, when this location was illegally occupied by Jordan, Jews were prohibited from living there.

As to whether it is wise for Israel to allow Jews to live in all parts of their capital, that is something that Israelis can debate, though redividing Jerusalem and returning those parts handed over to the Palestinian Arabs to a Jew-free condition seems like a curious way to advance the cause of peace and mutual coexistence. But let’s leave aside the question of Jewish rights or even the strategic wisdom of putting more Jews in these neighborhoods. Let us instead examine the Palestinian claim and what it represents.

When the New York Times reported the fact that ground was being broken for the new housing in Sheikh Jarrah in a story published on Sunday, what it did was to focus on the destruction of what it claimed was a Palestinian “landmark.” What landmark, you ask? Was it a medieval structure that in some way represents the longstanding Arab presence in the city or its culture?

(Read full "Toppled Palestinian ‘Landmark’ Symbolized Hate")

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Three Jews seek to reclaim homes in Sheikh Jarrah

Bataween
Point of No Return
21 October '10

Sheikh Jarrah in east Jerusalem (known also as the quarter of Shimon the Just) has been the scene of orchestrated protests for several weeks now against Jews moving into 'Arab' homes. But last week, three original Jewish owners themselves turned up. Ynet News reports:

Three Jewish people on Thursday arrived at the east Jerusalem neighborhood and claimed they were the original owners of houses inhabited by Palestinian families, demanding their property be returned to them.

"My grandfather built this house and the synagogue that was burned down by Arabs in 1948," said 76-year-old Elisha Ben-Tzur. "I demand to get my property back. The Arabs took control over the entire Eretz Yisrael, so they should at least leave us with what's rightfully ours," he asserted. Ben-Tzur recalled that at the end of the War of Independence, and after Sheikh Jarrah was left under Jordanian jurisdiction, his family moved to the neighborhood of Romema.

"Before Sheikh Jarrah, we lived in Silwan – but were expelled out of there as well," he said, while harshly criticizing the protest against Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem.

(Read full story)

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Jews discriminating against Jews

Michael Freund
JPost
15 July '10

Each week for the past nine months, a small band of noisy left-wing protesters has been gathering in the heart of Jerusalem. Though claiming to be motivated by the highest of ideals, these would-be campaigners for human rights appear to have trouble respecting even the most basic of society’s ground rules.

The demonstrators have repeatedly clashed with the police, broken through security barriers, attempted to block roads and even sought to storm privately-owned property. Mustering all the indignation at their disposal, they have waged an increasingly strident battle in an attempt to draw attention to their crusade.

Thus far, more than 100 have been arrested, and 44 have been slapped with indictments for a variety of offenses.

And just what, you might be wondering, could spark so much ire? What possible “injustice” could prompt people to come out in such a regular, and raucous, fashion? Why, it must be Jews moving into Jewish-owned homes in Jerusalem, of course! The scene of the action is the Shimon Hatzadik neighborhood, which the media prefers to call by its Arabic name (what a surprise) of Sheikh Jarrah.

LOCATED JUST north of the Old City, the area is home to the tomb of Shimon Hatzadik (Simeon the Just), a high priest who served in the Second Temple and who was among the last members of the Men of the Great Assembly (Anshei Knesset Hagedola) more than two millennia ago.

For centuries, the site was popular with Jewish pilgrims, and in 1876, the tomb and a surrounding plot of 18 dunams (4.5 acres) were purchased by a committee of Jews. Dozens of families subsequently moved in, with the neighborhood eventually serving as home to a thriving community of hundreds of Jews.

But in 1936, Arab rioters assaulted the area’s Jewish residents, and during the 1948 War of Independence, Jordan invaded and captured the neighborhood, bringing about a temporary end to the Jewish presence there. The Jordanians allowed Arabs to move into the deserted Jewish residences, effectively creating a cadre of squatters.

But after the liberation and reunification of Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War, efforts began to correct this historical injustice by restoring the area to its rightful Jewish owners. Sanctioned by the courts and with the backing of police, Jewish families have been moving into homes in the neighborhood for years, in some instances forcing out Arab residents who had no legal or moral right to be there.

And this – believe it or not – is what incenses the leftwing activists so much. Tossing aside the area’s historical Jewish connection, they choose to ignore the fact that the Jewish presence is being renewed after it was snuffed out by Arab violence and hatred several decades ago.

(Read full story)

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Sheikh Jarrah in 1948

Elder of Ziyon
10 May '10

The Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood has been in the news a lot lately. What is hardly mentioned is that it was the epicenter of Arab attacks on Jews in 1948.

In fact, that area - where Jews lived as well as Muslims before 1948, in quarters known as Shimon HaTzadik and Nahalat Shimon - was the scene of many Arab attacks in 1948 on their neighboring Jews.

Arabs from Sheikh Jarrah started attacking their Jewish neighbors almost immediately after the UN Partition vote. This article is from January 12, 1948, where it mentions that attacks had been coming from that area for three weeks already:



(Read Elder of Ziyon's full post)

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More lies from the NYT on Israel

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
01 May '10

The New York Times, in an op-ed piece, perpetuates pro-Palestinian propaganda that Israel is pushing out Arabs from Jerusalem and replacing them with Jews ("Who Lives in Sheik Jarah?'" by Kai Bird, April 30:) It's an all-too familiar canard that has gained wide currency in mainstream media.

Starting with a few title disputes between Jews and Arabs to homes in Jerusalem, Bird's article jumps to the false generalization that Israel is systematically de-populating Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods -- with Prime Minister Netanyahu as the prime culprit.

How wrong is this picture?

For one thing, current controversies revolve mainly about the right of Jews to build more homes in long-established Jewish neighborhoods that would remain part of Israel under any conceivable peace agreement. For another, demographic trends point to the exact opposite of Bird's thesis: Construction of Arab homes has been steadily outpacing construction of Jewish homes in Israel's capital.

(Read full post)

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The Iranian Calamity And The President’s Obsession With A Little Street In Jerusalem

Marty Peretz
The New Republic
24 April '10

Frankly, I do not think that Barack Obama ever really believed that an accommodation with Iran over its nuclear designs was possible. What follows is that he prevaricated about this promising turn in diplomacy and that one, all the while knowing he was going straight down a dead-end street. And going down that street in a quite cavalier fashion so as to keep his critics at bay. Some Americans were even persuaded by the seemingly confident president that he must have something up his sleeve. After all, we’d like to have faith in his strategic savvy, especially when a Hitlerian maniac has appeared on the world scene and appeared, as it were, with nukes. Alas, that confidence was a bad attribution.

The fact is that Dr. A’jad was correct. He was tilting against no hard American strategy at all. This is confirmed by the January intelligence document by the secretary of defense, Robert Gates, which was leaked a week ago. It concluded that we had never had a systematic approach to the challenge from Tehran and, given the fact that whatever planning we did operate from had failed, we had even less to go on now. Yes, Obama compelled his defense chief to re-remember things. But what Gates then said said nothing.

There was, of course, the ongoing Edgar Bergen-Charlie McCarthy ventriloquism act about sanctions. First, they would be “ferocious.” All the way down to, well, “we have to get Russia and China on board” and, of course, that would make the sanctions much less than punitive or, as the secretary of state promised, “biting.” It’s too bad Mrs. Clinton doesn’t still have presidential aspirations. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be parroting Obama deceits on Iran. Or, at least, she wouldn’t be.

(Read full article)

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Of grievances and perceptions

Soccer Dad
14 March '10

Last week in an article about the eviction of two Arab families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, Isabel Kershner of the New York Times summed it up:

For those who want to see a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the eviction of the Ghawis has touched on two sensitive nerves: the fate of East Jerusalem, where Israel and the Palestinians vie for control, and the abiding grievances of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war.

She mentioned two things: both sides are competing and the Palestinians have a grievance. In fact most of the article centers around the Palestinian claims and how even some Israelis support the Palestinian case. The history leaves out inconvenient details such as:

On April 13, 1948, a convoy of ambulances, armored buses, trucks loaded with food and medical equipment, and 105 doctors, nurses, medical students, Hebrew University personnel, and guards headed for Mt. Scopus. The convoy was ambushed in the middle of Sheikh Jarrah, the lead vehicle hit a mine, and gangs of armed Arabs attacked. Seventy-eight Jews were murdered, among them 20 women and Dr. Haim Yaski, the hospital director. In the following months the hospital and university ceased to function. After the Six-Day War, when the area was returned to Israel, a memorial was built in their honor in Sheikh Jarrah on the road leading to Mt. Scopus.

Compare Kershner's care in preserving the Palestinian narrative in the Sheikh Jarrah story to the way she handled the Israeli narrative in the case of honoring Dalal Mughrabi:

The woman being honored, Dalal Mughrabi, was the 19-year-old leader of a Palestinian squad that sailed from Lebanon and landed on a beach between Haifa and Tel Aviv. They killed an American photojournalist, hijacked a bus and commandeered another, embarking on a bloody rampage that left 38 Israeli civilians dead, 13 of them children, according to official Israeli figures. Ms. Mughrabi and several other attackers were killed.
To Israelis, hailing Ms. Mughrabi as a heroine and a martyr is an act that glorifies terrorism.

But, underscoring the chasm between Israeli and Palestinian perceptions, the Fatah representatives described Ms. Mughrabi as a courageous fighter who held a proud place in Palestinian history. Defiant, they insisted that they would not let Israel dictate the names of Palestinian streets and squares.

Note that here the dispute is reduced to a matter of perceptions, as if a "bloody rampage" that claims the lives of "38 Israeli civilians" isn't the very definition of terrorism.

(Read full post)
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The March of the Red-Green Brigades

Caroline Glick
carolineglick.com
12 March '10

The Red-Green alliance is on the march. On Wednesday, the leftist-controlled European Parliament in Strasbourg passed a resolution endorsing the Goldstone Report. That report, it will be recalled, denies Israel's right to self-defense by alleging that Israel's actions to defend itself from illegal Palestinian aggression during the course of Operation Cast Lead were war crimes.

The resolution did more than accept the Goldstone Report's baseless claims. It sought to silence those who are trying to make the Red portion of the Red-Green alliance pay a price for its abetment of jihad.

The resolution "expresses its concern about pressure placed on NGOs involved in the preparation of the Goldstone Report and in follow-up investigations, and calls on authorities on all sides to refrain from any measures restricting the activities of these organizations."

This statement was inserted to defend the EU-supported Israeli organizations - overwhelmingly associated with the far-Left New Israel Fund - that took a lead role in providing Richard Goldstone and his associates with false allegations of illegal actions by IDF soldiers. Those organizations - and the New Israel Fund - have rightly been the subject of scrutiny in Israel after their role in compiling the Goldstone Report was revealed in January by the Israeli student organization Im Tirzu.

Israel is not the only target of the Red-Green alliance. Its operations span the globe. Sometimes, as in the case of the Goldstone Report, the Left leads the charge. Sometimes, as with the Hamas-led missile offensive against Israel that preceded Cast Lead, the jihadists move first.

(Read full article)
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The dogs of Sheikh Jarrah

Lurker
The Muqata
08 March '10

Have you ever wondered about what Arabs think of their Jewish anti-Israel fellow travellers? The video below might provide a hint. It's from one of the weekly demonstrations held by the radical left in the Jerusalem neigborhood of Shimon HaTzaddik (aka "Sheikh Jarrah")*.



In the video, several demonstrators can be seen getting arrested by the police. The overwhelming majority of the arrestees seem to be Israeli Jews. Meanwhile, starting at about 3:19 in the video, a woman in traditional Arab garb, looking on as these pro-Arab Jewish demonstrators are led away by the police, loudly shouts the following chant:


"Falasteene Bladna, al-Yahud klabna!"

This translates into:

"Palestine is our land, the Jews are our dogs!"

(It should be noted, by the way, that she did not say that the "Zionists" are the Arabs' dogs, or that the "Israelis" are their dogs -- she said that the "Jews" are their dogs.)

(Excellent write-up. Read full post)
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Left shows blindspot on Jewish rights in Jerusalem

Bataween
Point of No Return
06 March '10

Another demonstration took place over the weekend against Jews moving into Sheikh Jarrah, that area of East Jerusalem known to Jews as Shimon Hatzadik. Palestinians and much of the media claim it is 'Arab'. The controversy over property rights concerns this blog because the underlying assumption is that Arab rights trump Jewish rights: nobody seems to care that Jews were forcibly evicted from land and property in East Jerusalem before 1948, nor does anyone worry about Jewish property seized in Arab countries. The Jews are the 'interlopers', while the Arabs are 'indigenous'. A proper reading of history shows that nothing could be further than the truth. Karni Eldad writing in Haaretz says Jews have had to buy their property in Jerusalem twice over :

"In 1948, scores of families were expelled from their homes in Jerusalem. The city was divided and squatters took over their houses and built on their properties. These refugees prayed to return to the homes they purchased legally in the 1920s and 1930s.

"In 1967, legal proceedings began for the restoration of ownership to those refugees. The squatters pursued every possible means, in every court, to delay the implementation of the possession by the legal owners. Every such legal proceeding lasted for decades, until an appeal was made to the High Court of Justice.

"In 2009, the High Court of Justice had its say too - the squatters must be evicted and they must also pay compensation to the owners of the land for all the years they made use of it. The proceedings against all the squatters has not yet been completed, but this year dozens of Jewish families are slated to return to their homes. Jewish? What? Yes, yes. These are families that are now purchasing, for the full price, their own properties in the Shimon Hatzadik neighborhood, better known as Sheikh Jarrah.

(Read full article)
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James Carroll Misrepresents Jerusalem Evictions Story

Steven Stotsky
CAMERA Media Analysis
24 February '10

Boston Globe columnist James Carroll has done it again. On February 22, 2010, he penned another highly biased opinion piece about Israel, relying heavily on personal claims leveled by Palestinians. The topic is evictions of several Palestinian families from disputed property in eastern Jerusalem. The writer promotes falsehoods about the disposition of the property and trashes Israeli legal proceedings that preceded the evictions. Beyond misrepresenting the facts and history of the case, Carroll offers a skewed portrayal of the two sides. Though he's written forthrightly and eloquently (in Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews) about the history of Christian hostility towards Jews, he has long seemed unable to apply the same approach to Israel. The February 22 commentary about supposed "creeping annexation" of Arab land echoes recent similar bias and error about Jerusalem.

The column focuses on the eviction of Palestinian families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem. Carroll describes the land on which the homes were built for the Palestinian families in the 1950s as "vacant," obscuring a crucial element of this story. The land had been purchased by two Jewish organizations in the late 1800s, but was siezed by the Jordanians during the 1948 war. Regrettably, Carroll, who once wrote of being troubled that a clock owned by his mother in Germany might have previously been stolen from Jews, does not reflect on how the Arab families he champions were similarly the beneficiaries of violent dispossession of property from Jewish owners. He dismisses out of hand the history of Jewish ownership while giving voice in detail to the claim by the Arab occupants that their failure to secure the property deed was due to the 1967 war in which Israel took control of the land.

The 700 word piece also never mentions the salient fact that even after Jewish claims of ownership were confirmed, the evictions only came about because the Arab families stopped paying rent.

(Read full article)

Related: The Sheikh Jarrah-Shimon HaTzadik Neighborhood
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In favor of the right of return

Karni Eldad
Haaretz
17 February '10

In 1948, scores of families were expelled from their homes in Jerusalem. The city was divided and squatters took over their houses and built on their properties. These refugees prayed to return to the homes they purchased legally in the 1920s and 1930s.

In 1967, legal proceedings began for the restoration of ownership to those refugees. The squatters pursued every possible means, in every court, to delay the implementation of the possession by the legal owners. Every such legal proceeding lasted for decades, until an appeal was made to the High Court of Justice.

In 2009, the High Court of Justice had its say too - the squatters must be evicted and they must also pay compensation to the owners of the land for all the years they made use of it. The proceedings against all the squatters has not yet been completed, but this year dozens of Jewish families are slated to return to their homes.

Jewish? What? Yes, yes. These are families that are now purchasing, for the full price, their own properties in the Shimon Hatzadik neighborhood, better known as Sheikh Jarrah.

Is anyone on the left standing by the side of these robbed families and against the Arab squatters? Not a single one of them. All the morality melts away when the actors change. Where can the (supposedly) moral left be found? In demonstrations against the police and against the old-new settlers who have returned to their stolen homes.

(Read full article)
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The new pioneers

An exclusive interview with Yuval and Tamar Marcus, residents of Shimon Hatzadik in Sheikh Jarrah.


Peggy Cidor
In Jerusalem/JPost
05 February '10

For the past few weeks, the small Sheikh Jarrah playground (built through a grant by the Jerusalem Foundation) on Nablus Road, facing the entrance to the Shimon Hatzadik Cave, has become the stage for a weekly demonstration held by a wide range of left-wing activists and human rights organizations. On Friday afternoons, largely radical groups gather on the right side of the street. On the opposite side stands an ever-growing group of policemen. In between, whether driving or walking to the nearby mosque, Arab residents stare at the two groups with a glint of cynicism but mostly with indifference. The demonstration is a protest against the ongoing establishment of Jewish families in the neighborhood, which is considered a major obstacle to the division of Jerusalem in eventual negotiations.

Two weeks ago, the police arrested more than 20 of the Jewish demonstrators, among them Hagai El-Ad, executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and former head of the Open House. For many, that was considered crossing a red line by the police. As a result, the following week a much larger group – more than 300 people – turned up to show their support for the demonstrators, as well as their anger at what they consider a harsh attitude toward them by the police. Slogans, catcalls, placards and, as of this week, a group of drummers are turning the Friday demonstrations at Sheikh Jarrah into a new tradition.



During all this time the Jewish residents of the neighborhood, those who raised the ire of the protesters in the first place, have not been seen or registered any reaction, even though some of the slogans and placards are directed at them, such as “Settlers = Thieves.” In fact, not one of the 17 families installed in the tiny neighborhood situated between the commemorative stone for the victims of the Hadassah convoy during the War of Independence on the upper side of the street and the mosque near the American Colony hotel – three compounds of houses in all – ever show up, even speak to the media or express their position in any way.

For the past 10 years, since Jewish residents first began to move into the neighborhood, few have agreed to speak to the press. But this week, Yuval Marcus and his wife, Tamar, opened their home to In Jerusalem and agreed to talk about how it feels to live in an Arab neighborhood (“We feel rather secure here”), how they feel about the ever-growing demonstrations on Fridays (“We are not so aware of them”) and to say a few things about their connection to the Land and how they understand the term “pioneers” today.

How long have you been living here?

Yuval: We’ve been here for four and a half years. We arrived here as a young couple, and our two children were born here. We are both from here, Jerusalem.

What brought you to live here?

Yuval: It’s a simple ideological decision. We both strongly believe that settling in Jerusalem is something essential for Am Yisrael [the Jewish people]. We came here because it is crucial for our sovereignty over Jerusalem. After 1967, this area was totally devoid of Jews, and it is crucial to create a continuity of Jewish presence here. It is important on a national Jewish level, much more than personal consideration. And thus, though I am not happy about Arab families evacuated and living in the streets [though they built here without permits], this seems to me much more important.

(Read full interview)

Related: The Sheikh Jarrah-Shimon HaTzadik Neighborhood - The U.S.-Israeli Dispute over Building in Jerusalem
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