West Bank Stories

Palestinians in the West Bank are bracing themselves for more violence by extremist Israeli settlers after their eviction from a Palestinian-owned house in the town of Hebron. The settlers say that they had legally purchased the house, a claim vehemently denied by its Palestinian owner.

The Settlers

Since their eviction, settlers have torched fields, olive groves and yards in Hebron and nearby villages. They also opened fire on Palestinians, wounding three. Violence has also spread to areas around Nablus and Ramallah. In Bittin, north of Ramallah, settlers broke into a home and vandalized Palestinian property, and in several other West Bank villages, anti-Muslim graffiti was sprayed on mosque walls.

Shortly after the Six Day War in 1967, Israeli settlers forcefully took over several homes in Hebron; on many occasions under the watchful eyes of Israeli soldiers. In 1994, Baruch Goldstein, a doctor who had emigrated from the U.S., machine-gunned 29 Palestinians to death as they prayed in Hebron's Ibrahimi Mosque during the holy month of Ramadan. In 2005, I worked on a documentary and witnessed first hand the plight of a Palestinian family living in fear under the continuous harassment of the zealot settlers who were determined to drive them away from their ancestral home.

Ironically the settlers had named the house they occupied in Hebron "Beit Hashalom" or the Peace House.

The Cemetery

Under an equally ironic title, "tolerance", the city of Jerusalem has given the Wiesenthal Center the green light to destroy an ancient Muslim cemetery in the Mammilla neighborhood of West Jerusalem in order to build a new "Museum of Tolerance" there.

Construction work has already begun in a corner of the graveyard. Dozens of bones have been dug up, and no decision has been taken over what to do with them.

Palestinians opposed to the new building say that any proposal to build on top of a Jewish cemetery would never have been allowed.

"When a grave is destroyed at a Jewish cemetery in Russia or France, the entire State of Israel is in shock. In Jerusalem, an entire Muslim cemetery is being desecrated and no one cares," a Palestinian reporter told me over the phone.

The al- Kurd Family

Finally, Um Kamal al-Kurd walked with dozens of activists from East Jerusalem to her original home in the Talbiyeh neighborhood in West Jerusalem. She is attempting to exercise her right of return after Israeli forces evicted her from East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

The Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem was built by the UN and Jordanian government in 1956 to house Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war. However, with the start of the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem following the 1967 war, settlers began claiming ownership of the land the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood was built on.

Last month the Israeli authority's forcefully evicted Um Kamal along with her ailing husband from their house in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem, where they had been living since 1956. Um Kamal had for two weeks been living in a tent, not far away from their home from which they were evicted, along with international peace supporters. Last week, Israeli police and military personnel brought in a bulldozer and demolished the tent. The ailing husband has since died in a Jerusalem hospital.

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

Jamal Dajani produces the Mosaic Intelligence Report on Link TV

Follow Jamal Dajani on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jamaldajani

Comments

[joz22]

Mr. Dajani,

It looks like the NY Times folks are paying attention to your blogs. They finally reported on the Kurd family eviction story from their Jerusalem house.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/world/middleeast/07jerusalem.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

[ICUrTrueColors]

What happened? This is a shockingly anti-Israel article, and by that I mean that it's actually telling the truth about the treatment of the Palestinians.

I'm an American Jew and I pray for the day that AIPAC and its rulers in the Likud are seen for what they are: a fringe right-wing, ultra-nationalistic, supremacist organization that has no concern for the interests of non-elite Jews nor non-elite U. S. citizens.

[jad114]

I won't call them a fringe. If Natanyahu wins, the Likud, the settlers and AIPAC will be back in the driver's seat.

[adelediane]

Daily, we face the harsh truth that Ameica is complicit with Israel is trying to destroy the Palestinian people. We send millions of dollars to Israel who determines scarcity of food, jobs, for the Palestinians... how long can these people survive. Maybe that's the point.

Under the guise of "fear for our lives" Israel is doing nothing more than unmorally instilling fear and despair in the people who owned the land in the first place.

I am a Jewish ally, an Arab American, who worked with peacemaking American Jews during the Clinton era. We saw results. Now, I'm grieved that America allows this kind of ghetto treatment. Consider that Israeli Jews, who historically themselves were dumped behind giant walls, now have shoved Palestinians behind walls.

It is mysteriously unconscionable.

Adele

Adele

[HybridTea]

At least we have a sizable portion of the Jews all over the world as well as those in Israel, including some in the Israeli military, questioning Israeli policies towards the Palestinians - both Moslem and Christian. I really hope this will lead to resolution of the Israeli - Palestinian conflict so the Islamic world will not have any excuses on failing to address the larger issues that need to be addressed both within the Islamic world as well as its relationship to other religions.

The spread of Islam was never done peacefully or gently - it was violent, involved massacres, rapes, land grabs and enslavement. So despite the claim that Allah has been merciful towards his believers and given most of the oil to Moslems - I think there are several centuries of bad karma that the Islamic world still needs to answer to before it can move forward.

[ArmyCentrist]

The spread of Christianity was no less bloody, my dear...and Christians have a strange affinity for killing other Christians...in the name of Christianity. ie: The Inquisition, St. Valentine's Day Massacre in France, the Thirty Year's War in the Holy Roman Empire, the two sackings of Rome, wars between England and Spain, the reign of Bloody Mary...I could go on, but why bother? I've provided enough.

[joz22]

Here is some more: the massacres of the natives in South America by Cortez, the Crusade wars. Man has has selective memory and never learns from past history.

[leonardox1]

Maybe you should read the Old Testament and see how much violence in it. Let's not blame religion...it's man who does the killing.

[max08]

Philip Weiss reports on what Chuck Hagel said last night at the Israel Policy Forum in Manhattan. Hagel's comments are well worth reading.
http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2008/12/chuck-hagel-realist-.html#more

[max08]

From Ha'aretz today:

"ANALYSIS / Hebron settler riots were out and out pogroms"
By Avi Issacharoff
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1043795.html

[karmafriend]

and they call it the "Holy Land".

ugh

[shaitan]

"You Want to Deal With a Humanitarian Crisis, Mr Obama?

“Right now Israel, with full support from the U.S. is denying 1.5 million people in Gaza ALL the necessities of life.” Read Kathleen and Bill Christison’s searing emergency bulletin to Obama. “This is a U.S.-created, U.S.-supported disaster…Put meat on the bones of your talk about compassion…” Quote from CounterPunch

[justice2008]

He should also read this article in Israeli media Y Net News about settlers racism
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3633163,00.html

[newsjunkie5]

I seriously don't understand how the US administration or the Israeli government can even begin discussing a two-state solution when over and over again these injustices towards Palestinians keep occurring with no penalties on the settlers.

It is so frustrating...and then people wonder why Palestinians are frustrated and are angry.

I'm not Palestinian and I don't live this day in and day out...but I'm frustrated and ANGRY!

ENOUGH ALREADY! WORLD, WAKE UP AND DO SOMETHING!

[Lon]

I don't get the connection you draw. The fact that bad things are happening in the region is the reason that a two state solution is so important. Why would bad behavior of the settlers and the blind eye of the Israelis be a reason why anyone should not talk about a two state solution?

[newsjunkie5]

What politicians talk about and the realities on the ground are rarely the same. Just because a two-state solution is on the negotiation table does not mean that the people will go for it. If violence continues between Jewish settlers and Palestinians and the inequalities also continue-I have a hard time imgaining that both sides will continue negotiating. In the past when violence has escalated, negotiations have been halted. These are only my opinions and observations.

[ReyLoo]

Because whether in a 2 state situation or 1 state situation...injustice is injustice and need not be tolerated wherever it may come from...PERIOD!!! In light of our global history no so called "government" can claim to have the essential quality of LEADERSHIP if they allow blatant injustice within their borders.

[justice2008]

The settlers have been gobbling Palestinian land for decades while the US and the international communities looked the other way. This makes the prospect of a two state solution impossible!

[rosiebond007]

TOO RIGHT !!

[ReyLoo]

absolutely right!

[DC]

The settlements, which are illegal under all international law, have been financed not only by the Israeli government, but by the US government well. Please for consequences for illegal confiscation of homes fall on deaf ears in the international community

Abuses against Palestinians have been largely ignored and there is little real justice in Israel for Palestinians. . The hope was that life would become so miserable they will leave, go simply somewhere else.

The media does not really cover what is going on.

A video of Palestinian men being shot at close range by settlers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2008/dec/05/hebron-settlers-shooting-israel-palestinians

[leonardox1]

Oslo was a BAD mistake for the Palestinians. The two State Solution will create only Bantustans! Palestinians should fight for their rights for Israeli citizenships. One man one vote.

[jad114]

All past Israeli administrations have encouraged and financed settlement activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Now the chickens are comming home to roost and settlers will be the thorn in the side of any Israeli leader trying to make peace with the Palestinians.