Middle East “We have no money and no place to go” – Amnesty says Israeli eviction policy in the Palestinian territories is apartheid

Jerusalem

Named Kunder the side road ends at a small plot of land in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem, fenced with gray sheet metal. Opposite the plot is a new apartment building, and a sidewalk is paved across the road.

The gate of the fenced plot will be opened by a 74-year-old Fatima Salem. Concrete stairs lead to the old courtyard and the small buildings surrounding it. The patio is protected by corrugated sheets.

The Salem house is threatened with demolition as are dozens of other Palestinian houses in Sheikh Jarrah. The Salem family is likely to be evicted in March. The family received the first eviction order as early as 33 years ago.

“We don’t have the money or the place to go,” Salem says. He has lived on the same plot all his life, and now his three sons with their wives and children, a total of 11 people, also live on the plot.

Amnesty International released in February its much-discussed 280-page report Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime against Humanity.

The report was prepared for two years. According to the conclusions, Israel is pursuing a policy of apartheid, including the forced relocation of Palestinians and restrictions on movement. Other examples of Amnesty include administrative arrests and illegal executions both in Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, as well as the construction of settlements.

Amnesty used the Sheikh Jarrah district as an example in the report, where more than a hundred Palestinians are threatened with eviction and homes have been ordered to be handed over to settlement organizations.

Fatima Salem’s parents were forced to leave the city of Jaffa after the Israeli War of Independence in 1948. They moved to the Kunder Street site in Sheikh Jarrah in 1951.

They leased the land from Jordan, which at the time owned the area. Israel conquered the area in the 1967 war, and the Salem family, like their neighbors, continued to live as tenants of Israel’s General Custodian. The agency’s mission is to manage property owned by Jews before 1948.

In Israel, a law was passed in 1970 allowing Jews to reclaim property they owned before 1948. The former Jewish owners of the Salem site, living on the West Jerusalem side, reclaimed their house by law and later sold it to a settler who is now actively seeking family eviction.

Palestinians do not have a similar right to reclaim property they owned before 1948.

One The evictions carried out in East Jerusalem in January spread to the world through the media. Hundreds of people, including international organizations and diplomats, watched as the Israelis rolled Saliehin along the family’s seedling store and home on Mount Olive Street. The UN, the EU and many international organizations have appealed to international law that evictions and the destruction of homes are illegal.

Excavators rolled down the nursery buildings, and the family Mohammed-father with his sons fortified the roof of his house, threatening to blow up gas cylinders there. A couple of days later, in the morning, a special force of the police arrested the father and sons for a couple of days, and during that time the army demolished the house.

The Saliehi family said they bought the land in the 1950s when the area was under Jordanian control. The family had left West Jerusalem as internally displaced persons in 1948. The Israeli court did not accept the documents presented by the family and handed over the land to the city of Jerusalem. The city of Jerusalem said it has given the Saliehi family many times extra time to find a new home.

The city has zoned a school for the Arab children with special needs. “Arabs are demanding an increase in their well-being. At the same time, they cannot oppose the construction of schools, ”said Israeli Minister of Internal Security Omer Bar-Lev wrote on Twitter.

According to the Israeli organization Peace Now, which defends the Palestinians, the large, central plot would have accommodated both the school and Saliehi’s house.

Amnesty criticizes Israel’s destruction of Palestinian houses. According to statistics from the United Nations Organization for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Israel has destroyed 17 Palestinian houses in Jerusalem in January 2022 and a total of 177 last year.

Along with Sheikh Jarrah, demolition is threatening, among other things, two hundred Palestinian-inhabited buildings in the Silwan district. East Jerusalem belongs to the West Bank under international law and is a Palestinian territory, although in practice it is ruled by Israel.

Amnesty accuses Israel of, among other things, restricting the movement of Palestinians. According to the report, since the mid-1990s, Israel has built a network of checkpoints, roadblocks and walls to prevent free movement between the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel and to restrict Palestinian access abroad.

Rand Abdo, 38, owns a business gift wholesale business in Al Bireh in the West Bank. She and her husband Ibrahimilla there have been Israeli passes in the past, but last October they got permits for the whole family for the first time.

“We immediately took our 10- and 15-year-olds to the old city of Jerusalem, for the first time. They have now also seen the sea, ”says Abdo.

He means the Mediterranean, which is impossible for many Palestinian children to see. Abdo’s family is Christian, which helps in obtaining passes, especially at Christmas and Easter.

For the Palestinians passage- or a residence permit in Israel is a significant matter. Palestinians living in East Jerusalem can move freely within Israeli territory, including flying abroad via Tel Aviv Airport, but they are not Israeli citizens.

They pay their taxes to Israel and receive in return, among other things, a permanent residence permit in Israel, health care and other social benefits. However, they only have the right to vote in local elections and do not have to go to military service.

Without a pass or residence permit, Palestinians in the West Bank have no business in Jerusalem or anywhere else in Israel. They can travel abroad mainly through neighboring Jordan. Similarly, Israeli citizens have been denied access to Area A of the West Bank, which is entirely part of the Palestinian Authority.

Serious illness is the basis for obtaining a pass to East Jerusalem. Abdon’s 69-year-old father George is a cancer patient and needs radiotherapy that Palestinians receive from Augusta Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem.

“Dad needs an escort for the treatments. They both have to obtain a separate pass for each visit, ”says Abdo.

Obtaining a pass is difficult if someone in the family is in prison or involved in political activities.

Ruba Najar was in prison at the age of 16 during the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in the late 1980s.

“I got to visit Jerusalem five years ago, but I haven’t been allowed to show the city to my children. I haven’t gotten to my dad’s hometown of Jaffa, but a friend brought me a bottle of water from the shores of Jaffa, ”he says.

Palestinian Territory geographical fragmentation is also the subject of Amnesty’s criticism. The journey from Area A to Area A often involves many bends. For example, the journey from the West Bank capital Ramallah to Bethlehem takes about an hour if you can drive through Jerusalem.

“Without permission, you have to drive around, and the journey takes twice as long,” Abdo says.

Abdon’s salesman, Milaad Majrouhillano family yet.

“I shouldn’t marry an Israeli citizen or a Jerusalem residence permit holder, because as a Palestinian, I don’t get Israeli citizenship or a residence permit,” he says.

Some other human rights organizations – such as the Israeli B’Tselem – see Israel as practicing apartheid. According to the organization, Israel’s tactic is to “divide, separate and rule” the Palestinians. Similar statements have been made by other organizations, such as the Combatants for Peace, which includes both former Israeli and Palestinian fighters.

There was a great deal of uproar in Israel over the Amnesty report, and the organization has received harsh accusations of anti-Semitism.

Foreign Minister and future Prime Minister Jair Lapid described Amnesty as “a radical organization that propagates propaganda without investigating matters”. He stressed that “Israel is not perfect, but the country is democratic and abides by international law,” and that “Israel also has freedom of the press, freedom to criticize, and a strong judiciary”.

Many countries are rushing to dismiss allegations of apartheid. According to the United States, “Israel, the only Jewish state, must not be denied sovereignty.”

According to the British statement, “Israel does not practice apartheid, but it must do everything in its power to respect international law”. Austria and the Czech Republic, for example, also withdrew from the report. Finland has not taken a public position on the report.

Also a commentator on the liberal Israeli magazine Haaretz Mordechai Kremnitzer commented on the report as hostile to Israel. He wondered how Palestinians could return to their old settlements or gain free access even if they were hostile to the state of Israel. Such concessions could, according to Kremnitzer, be a threat to the existence of the state of Israel.

According to Kremnitzer, the report also contains truths, such as that Israel does not respect the 1967 borders but is building settlements east of the border, in the Palestinian territories.

He writes that “as long as Israel continues this line, accusations of apartheid will continue”. The Israeli government has approved the construction of more than 10,000 new settlement housing in the West Bank.

Times of Israel David Horowitz recalled that “Israel’s Arab minority has the same rights as others, and Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East”. About one-fifth of Israeli citizens are Arabs.

Read more: An influential organization began calling Israel an “apartheid regime” – is the description apt?