Love of the Land: Of grievances and perceptions

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)

Love of the Land: Of grievances and perceptions

Love of the Land: The March of the Red-Green Brigades

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)

Love of the Land: The March of the Red-Green Brigades

Love of the Land: The dogs of Sheikh Jarrah

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)

Love of the Land: The dogs of Sheikh Jarrah

Love of the Land: Left shows blindspot on Jewish rights in Jerusalem

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)

Love of the Land: Left shows blindspot on Jewish rights in Jerusalem

Love of the Land: James Carroll Misrepresents Jerusalem Evictions Story

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

Love of the Land: James Carroll Misrepresents Jerusalem Evictions Story

Love of the Land: In favor of the right of return

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)

Love of the Land: In favor of the right of return

Love of the Land: The new pioneers

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)

Love of the Land: The new pioneers