This is why Zionism is used as a pejorative. Jerusalem council set to approve Jewish housing in Arab neighborhood Several Palestinian families in East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah will be evicted to pave way for two new buildings meant to comprise 13 apartments. By Nir Hasson The Jerusalem Municipal Committee for Planning and Building is expected to approve Monday the construction of two buildings that will include 13 apartments for Jewish residents in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. Backing the plan are settler organizations who currently occupy three homes in the neighborhood. Following the plan's approval, it will be necessary to evict a number of Palestinian families living on the site in order for construction to commence. The planning committee is also expected to approve a new access road south of Har Homa, which will enable the expansion of the neighborhood. According to the plan to be brought today for approval, two buildings will be razed in the western part of the neighborhood where, until now, nearly no Jews live. In its place, two new buildings will be built. One will have 10 apartments and the other, three. In both cases Chaim Silverstein, a well known figure in right-wing circles in Jerusalem, is proposing the plans to the municipality. The companies behind the project are registered in the United States, and are probably front companies set up by right-wing activists in order to transfer funds for the purchase of real estate in Israel. Silverstein has power of attorney rights in both companies, Debril and Velpin. For the past 18 months there has been a struggle between Arabs and Jews over the activities of settlers in Sheikh Jarrah and against efforts to evict Palestinian families from the neighborhood. The settlers have been able to expand their hold in the neighborhood because prior to 1948 there was a Jewish neighborhood in Sheikh Jarrah. The court recognized the right of Jews who inherited properties to reclaim their properties. Since then, the settlers are working hard to convince the owners of the properties to sell them the rights so that they could evict the Palestinians and populate the area with Jewish families. A Supreme Court ruling in 2001 included the possibility of applying for Jewish property rights in the western portion of the neighborhood, and right-wing activists announced that they intended to expand their activities in the area over that portion of Sheikh Jarrah. "Continuing Jewish settlement in Sheikh Jarrah will seriously harm relations with the Palestinians and will break all agreements that Jewish neighborhoods will remain under Israeli sovereignty and Arab neighborhoods will be under Palestinian sovereignty," says Yosef Alalu, a Meretz city councillor. http://www.haaretz.com/print-editio...-jewish-housing-in-arab-neighborhood-1.341693
The article is a little confusing. Who owns the property that the people are being evicted from. There is mention of the settlers buying the property and evicting the Palestinian residents, but it also talks about inheritance and Jewish property rights. If the settlers are buying the property from the lawful owners and kicking out the tenants to build better buildings that will provide for increased revenue, I have no problem with that. It is a more economically advantageous use of land. I am not one who typically favors rent control or the ability of tenants to holdover leases in perpetuity. If on the other hand the lawful owners are being dispossessed of their land without just compensation, that goes against my value system (which mirrors the US Constitution on this issue).
The Israeli Absentee Law is entirely irrelevant to the occupied territories. Israel is violating customary international law by continuously changing the status quo of the occupied territories. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_476
Would you be OK if I started buying up property in black neighborhoods, evicting the tenants, redeveloping them, and only allowing white people to live there? The issue is not that they are buying the land and evicting the tenants. It's who the tenants are, who will be allowed to move in, and the reason that will be the case.
Local governments in Israel are practically local dictatorships. There's no formal legal structure that dictates what they can and cannot do. One of the many problems when your country doesnt actually have a constitution.
I thought settlers were not so well off, how are they buying up so much property in the most desired city in the world? While you're right in that if it is a fair, legal deal, there is no problem, but the fact that you would consider it a possibility is quite unrealistic.
Yes. I have always maintained that I think racists should be allowed to practice their racism in their private dealings and let the market punish them. I would not be likely to move into your segregated neighborhood, but I think you should be allowed to make it. I would be okay with it if you started buying up property in black neighborhoods, evicting the tenants, redeveloping them, and only allowed wealthy people to live there, even if it turned out that all of the wealthy tenants ended up being white, and I would even consider moving into that neighborhood if I could afford it. I didn't see enough facts in the article to make that case. Have you been to East Jerusalem? It is largely slum-like conditions. I can't imagine that property values there are very high. There are also wealthy Zionist organizations that I am sure are willing to front the money for buying the Palestinians out of Jerusalem. EDIT: Here is the location where this is happening. Not exactly the wealthiest of communities.
That looks much better than some of the other communities in East Jerusalem. From Wikipedia: A Jewish observer at the start of the 20th century wrote of Sheikh Jarrah: "In the past years a whole neighbourhood of our Muslim fellow citizens established northeast of our city, from the field of the Tomb of Simon the Just and eastward — a neighbourhood of large excellent-looking, wonderful, perfectly beautiful houses, without anyone in our city noticing it without going there specially to see it." Either way, Israel has no authority to make administrative decisions in East Jerusalem.
Not true at all. I'll post pictures once I can go back to houston and get my photos off of my computer there but that's a joke. If East Jerusalem is a slum then the West Bank must be the worst place ever. Yes it looks different than West Jerusalem but you clearly have a strange definition of slums.
I wouldn't consider myself racist, but if the white people are safer and more viable tenants then I see no problems with your analogy. Now if there are black people who are just as viable of tenants as the white people then yes by all means it's racist. More then likely this is a case of pushing Palestinians out and from the stories I've heard from Palestinians with family in the region, there is still quite a bit of this occurring. At the same time, there are more Israelis who are fighting against these injustices as well. Hopefully with time the newer generations will force a shift in thinking and both sides will be able to coexist peacefully. Looking at situations like this, it's pretty remarkable what the US has been able to do with so many races and religions coexisting.
The non-racist version of what you're saying is: I don't care about race, I only care about safety and viability which can be proven according to the specific applicant's publicly available information.
No I haven't been there but other posters have been kind enough to show me what you mean. I'm assuming you haven't been there either then. I'm also sure there are such organizations. What I am saying is that if I were a Palestinian from Jerusalem, and I owned a square foot of property there in 2011, I wouldn't sell that one square foot for anything less than another same sized piece of property in Israel + an insane amount of cash. Given that reality, how are average income people like settlers able to afford these loans? How are these organizations able to continuously fund such over priced property without creating the largest property bubble in the history of mankind while not drowning themselves in debt? I'm seriously not attacking you, I'm genuinely interested. It sounds like an unsustainable strategy. Could you list some of these organizations for us?
I think it's only fair that if we read the Israeli version of the events, we read the best Palestinian source of info for these events as well: It doesn't seem like this was a purchase. From the Haaretz article: StupidMoniker, could you shed some light on which Israeli law they are talking about here regarding alleged confiscation of land?
[Snipped article about another land grab that my friends will be arrested for protesting] No, this is why. This is where the idea came from. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionist_entity Corrupt politicians stealing land and justifying it with their mythological meta-narrative to keep the support of the dumb is unfortunately nothing new. This isn't something that happens only in East Jerusalem or the West Bank. What IS new, relatively speaking, is the scope of the growth of these real-estate grabs under this really ****ing stupid Minister of the Interior . The government subsidizes the creation of Orthodox Jewish communities in places that are overtly secular or Arab. Or Bedouin. Or Druze. The Big Plan is to Judaize Israel as much as possible. The area where my ex lives is inside the Green Line, and is mostly artist communities, old leftie Kibbutzim and Arab villages like Umm_al-Fahm is no ripe for development. It's been that way for years, but someone decided building a huge subdivision for ultra-Orthodox Americans and French people with huge Orange County style houses and cul-de-sacs (with taxpayer money) would be just what people there want. And in Akko , across from Haifa? The locals there are famous for seafood. Evil, unkosher seafood. So the government decided to underfund all those pesky schools full of Arab kids and bus in a bunch of poor uneducated religious jews and subsidize their housing? What's that you say? Racial tension? Uh-oh! Let's build up some manufactured hysteria! Those arabs were driving on Yom Kippur? We'll show 'em. They are doing it in Jaffa as well, and now, they are going after secular Jewish neighborhoods, building planned communities for the penguins in the middle of Tel Aviv. Trust me...NO ONE wants these sanctimonious assholes moving in their neighborhood. It's not business as usual. It's creepy and messianic and it's about re-defining Israel completely. As one writer recently put it...the Occupation has grown to the point that it has returned home and is taking over Israel from within now.
I in fact have been there. I am sure that other posters can cherry pick some nice buildings. I am also sure I saw quite a few very run down and slum-like buildings while I was there. The original post concerned two buildings which were both being destroyed to make way for new buildings. Does it really seem more likely to you that they were one of the nice cherry picked buildings that one of the garbage buildings? What makes you think that every Palestinian in East Jerusalem shares your hatred of Israel or your conviction that it is their responsibility to sacrifice in order to maintain a home there. Isn't it entirely possible that many Palestinians would sell their building for a handsome profit and move to Ramallah, or any one of a hundred other towns in the West Bank. If everyone had your attitude there would be no such thing as gentrification. Many cities in America would also have blighted downtown areas as the poor residents refused to sell to make way for new development. Also keep in mind that the resident is not necessarily the owner. Is it that hard to believe that a Palestinian landlord would be willing to sell a rental property in East Jerusalem without getting absurd prices or land in Israel in return? Ir David Foundation aka Elad Association Ateret Cohanim Moskowitz Foundation
