Palestinians facing eviction from East Jerusalem offered deal

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Palestinians facing eviction from East Jerusalem offered deal

Judge proposes compromise to settle dispute over home ownership with Israeli settlers in Sheikh Jarrah

Bethan McKernan and Quique Kierszenbaum
Mon 2 Aug 2021 17.37 BST

Palestinian residents of the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah facing forcible eviction from their homes have been offered a compromise deal with Jewish settlers by Israel’s supreme court, in an unexpected development in the high-profile case.

The session on Monday, which was supposed to reach a final decision on whether to accept an appeal from four Palestinian families over eviction orders in the decades-old legal battle, was instead met with a surprise entreaty from the judges for the two sides to accept a “practical solution”.

“What we are saying is, let’s move from the level of principles to the levels of practicality,” Justice Isaac Amit told the courtroom, where proceedings took place in Hebrew without translation into Arabic. “People must continue to live there and that’s the idea, to try to reach a practical arrangement.”

The proposed compromise would allow the 70 Palestinians to remain in their homes as tenants with “protected status” and safeguard them from eviction for “the coming years” while paying an annual fee of 1,500NIS (£335) to the Nahalat Shimon company, a settler organisation that lower courts have declared the rightful owners of the disputed properties.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/02/palestinians-facing-eviction-from-east-jerusalem-offered-deal

______________________________________________________________________

Source: BBC

Sheikh Jarrah: Palestinians offered way out from evictions

By Raffi Berg
BBC News Online Middle East editor

2 August 2021

Israel's top court has proposed a plan to enable Palestinians threatened with eviction in East Jerusalem to stay, in a closely-watched and divisive case.

The Supreme Court was expected to issue a ruling to end a long legal battle but urged the sides to compromise instead.

It proposed the four families could stay in their homes in Sheikh Jarrah if they recognised the land was owned by a Jewish settlement company.

The issue has fuelled Israel-Palestinian tensions in recent months.

The threat of evictions stoked some of the worst violence between Israeli police and Palestinians in Jerusalem in years, culminating in an 11-day conflict with Gaza after its militant Hamas rulers fired rockets at the city in what it said was partly a response to Israeli "harassment" in Sheikh Jarrah.

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Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-58024060

[The Magistrate]

1. It Is Not a Bad Deal, Sir

I might feel different were this an ancestral homestead in occupied territory but it's not. Anyone who claims title through Jordan is doing just what Israel is commonly accused of --- squatting on someone else's land. The East Quarter was the Jewish quarter, that was besieged by Jordan in the '48, with victorious result that drove out its populace, and left Jordan in occupation of the place.

[Israeli]

2. JNF Set to Approve Plan That Could Lead to Palestinians' Eviction

The Jewish National Fund is expected to greenlight a review of hundreds of property assets beyond the Green Line, many of which hold a similar legal status to homes in East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah

Hagar Shezaf and Nir Hasson
Aug. 5, 2021 6:04 AM

A new initiative by the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael) on registration of properties beyond the Green Line could lead to the eviction of Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

JNF's board of directors is set to meet on Thursday to approve the plan, which entails reviewing 17,000 property assets across Israel and the West Bank that have not been registered to date. The entire project is expected to cost about 100 million shekels ($31 million) and take five years to execute.

Source : https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-jnf-set-to-approve-plan-that-could-lead-to-palestinians-eviction-1.10086143

[Israeli]

3. Why does the JNF still exist?

The forefathers of Zionism never hid their desire to use the Jewish National Fund to dispossess Palestinians. On its 120th anniversary, now is the time to abolish it.

By Yaara Benger Alaluf
July 8, 2021

The JNF’s anniversary celebrations are hardly marred by news of the right-wing takeover of the power positions in The National Institutions, and the promotion of the decision to regulate the JNF’s operations in the West Bank to expand Jewish settlements there. “The acquisition of land in the Occupied Territories is an irremovable stain on the JNF’s glorious record,” wrote Peace Now on its website. “Apart for the fact that this is a shady and disreputable area, purchasing lands for Jewish settlements compromises the chances for peace and a two-state solution and threatens the future of Israel and of the Zionist vision.”

Revisiting the history of the JNF and its leaders shows that purchasing land in the West Bank, kicking families out of their homes in East Jerusalem, and sending bulldozers to trample farming equipment and houses in the Negev-Naqab are far from stains on a glorious record, nor are they an anomaly. They are fundamental features of the JNF’s mandate. As the organization marks its 120th anniversary, it is high time to stop colluding with its projects and propaganda and demand the Jewish National Fund be disbanded immediately.

Source : https://www.972mag.com/jnf-zionism-palestinians-dispossession/

[Israeli]

4. Previous to this announcement Eugene

New legal opinion could change the fate of the Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan eviction cases

21.7.21

A group of Israeli international law experts have filed a brief with the Israeli Supreme Court stating a Palestinian family from Silwan facing a settler eviction application must remain in its home.

A group of world renowned Israeli experts on international human rights law, have filed an application to submit an amicus curiae brief in the first High Court case concerning an eviction application brought by settlers against a Palestinian family from Batan al-Hawa in Silwan. This case will have implications for hundreds of other residents facing eviction.

The amicus curiae brief prepared by prominent Israeli experts on International Law, Prof. Eyal Benvenisti, Prof. Orna Ben Naftali, Dr. Natalie Davidson and Prof. David Kretzmer, represented by Adv. Michael Sfard and Adv. Hagai Benziman, is relevant to other eviction applications in Silwan and in Sheikh Jarrah where over 1000 people are at risk of being displaced by settlers. The opinion presents hitherto unheard arguments rooted in international human rights law.

According to the brief, the Palestinian residents’ human right to housing, includes a right to continue living in properties that have served as their homes for decades, and that they have developed certain property rights to these homes. The brief addresses an approach that has emerged in international jurisprudence on human rights law which puts an emphasis on group vulnerability of occupants facing eviction and institutional, systemic discrimination against them. Where these are present, in certain circumstances, the occupants’ rights, stemming from the human right to housing and specifically, to live in their home and their family’s home – trump the right of the original owner or their substitute to regain possession of the property.

Continued at : https://peacenow.org.il/en/new-legal-opinion-could-change-the-fate-of-the-sheikh-jarrah-and-silwan-eviction-cases