Home > Olives & Thorns > Archives > 2008 > November > 09
Sunday, November 9, 2008
An eviction in Jerusalem
The neighborhood was stirring this morning. The Israelis came in the middle of the night, they said, and evicted Fawzieh and Mohammad Kurd.
The family has lived in the same home since it was built, legally, in the 1950s. But a Jewish organization brought forth a 19th-century deed to the land, and Israeli courts ruled in their favor.
A neighbor told me this morning that after the Kurds’ furniture was loaded onto a truck, Jewish settlers filled the house with song and dance. The newly Jewish home is adjacent to others recently adorned with the Israeli flag, part of a strategy to widen the Jewish presence in East Jerusalem, claimed by Palestinians as their future capital.
We visited the Kurds two months ago. Elderly and enfeebled, they said their life’s memories were wrapped up in the modest home. They had received hundreds of well-wishers, including foreign diplomats, some of whom live in the neighborhood. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had protested against moves to evict the family. In the end, none of that mattered.
A crowd formed in the street, outside police barricades, hours later. There were no shouts or signs or stones thrown. They stood mostly in silence. Police kept Palestinians and journalists at bay, while allowing ultra-Orthodox Jewish men to freely pass.
“This is what democracy is all about,” Rafiq Husseini, chief of staff to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, told me, sarcastically.
Palestinians hold deeds to more than half of the land in old West Jerusalem. Since 1948, Israelis have lived legally inside homes constructed and once owned by Palestinians.
“This law is racist because it is a one-way system,” Husseini said.
“We are pessimistic today, but in the long run we are optimistic,” he continued. “The Israelis cannot remove us. They will have to either live with us in peace or face the consequences of doing these racist activities.”
What consequences, I asked.
“They’re promoting hate, aren’t they? That hate can only culminate in violence and counter-violence,” he said.
Then he turned to join two dozen men for noon prayer. They stood in two lines, prostrating themselves on carpets atop the asphalt, under a brilliant blue sky.
