Is Israel Really Trying to Evict Innocent Palestinians From Their Homes In Sheikh Jarrah?

May 11, 2021 By Hugh Fitzgerald

There have been plenty of stories recently about Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in east Jerusalem where, we are told, the endlessly cruel Israelis are trying to evict Palestinians who have been living there all their lives. It’s all part of Israel’s continuing “theft of Palestinian land” that the U.N., the E.U., and right-thinking people everywhere must work to stop. If you suspect there’s more to this story, you’d be right.

Elder of Ziyon has the details here: “Palestinians who demand 675,000 Jews be evicted because they are Jewish are complaining about ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Sheikh Jarrah,” Elder of Ziyon, May 6, 2021: 

The headlines from Sheikh Jarrah almost all ignore the basic facts of the issue: The buildings in question are owned by Jews and the Arab residents have refused to pay rent – even though they had agreed in a 1982 court case..............

The disputed land was bought in 1875 from Arab owners by the area’s Chief Rabbi; it was then owned by his successor until — we are told — the 1948 war. This was the finding of Israel’s Supreme Court, which is notorious for bending over backwards to find for the Palestinian side in cases brought before it.

 But the title in this instance was clear-cut. The land in dispute was then bought from the rabbinate by two Jewish organizations, There is some confusion here. It’s unclear if these properties were bought during the War of Independence in 1948, as the Supreme Court stated, or two years earlier, when the new buyers “worked to register” their ownership with the Mandatory government. Whatever the correct dates for the transfer of ownership, the owners of the land were undeniably Jews..........To Read More....