A work of journalistic genius by Gideon Levy (pictured), comparing his neighborhood in Tel Aviv, built on an Arab village after the Nakba, to the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem, which is being ethnically-cleansed today. He says, as we have argued here, that the unending occupation has forced open the door on the injustices of 1948, because these are two doors on the same hallway.
This beautiful piece is in Haaretz. When will I open an American newspaper and be ravished by moral Jewish writing like this, about the great foreign-policy issue of our time? Some day. When the neocons are finally gone. Speak, Gideon:
Somewhere, perhaps in a refugee camp in terrible poverty, lives the family of the farmer who plowed the land where my house now stands. According to the Israeli judicial system, they have the right to get their land back immediately, destroy my house, return and grow Jaffa oranges for export on its ruins, and remove me by force if necessary. The Jerusalem District Court, which recently ruled that representatives of the Sephardi community committee had the right to take back the Hanun and Gawi families’ apartments in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, has opened the 1948 file.
That is, if Israel had an egalitarian system of law and justice, if the legal system were fair, because then millions of Palestinians would be able to applaud the court and demonstrate their joy in the streets at the ruling. The road to justice denied in 1948 has been opened to everyone. From now on, Jews and Arabs will be able to demand the restitution of their property. The return is in the offing, with the backing of the Israeli justice system.
But of course, it’s not like that. The court that sealed the fate of the two Palestinian families and allowed extremist settlers to live in their place has once again laid bare the rule of law’s true state in Israel: racist and applying a double-standard, with separate legal systems for Jews and Arabs.…
It is impossible to ignore the injustices of 1948 while hundreds of thousands of refugees rot in the camps. No agreement will hold water without a solution to their plight, which is more feasible than Israel’s strident scaremongers suggest. But rulings like the current one make it harder to distinguish clearly between Sheikh Jarrah and Sheikh Munis, between the conquest of 1948 and the conquests of 1967. My house stands on land stolen by force, and it is the obligation of Israel and the world to redress the injustice without creating injustice and new dislocation.
Related posts:
- ‘Stop ethnic cleansing’
- ‘We are walking into the abyss’– Netanyahu’s sister-in-law
- Weekly Sheikh Jarrah protest greeted with hostility in West Jerusalem, cheers in East Jerusalem
- While the US and Israel spar over settlements, Israel continues ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem
- 200 of us demonstrated outside the courthouse all night long, shouting to be heard by the 17 in the lockup
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The rhetoric of the piece is appealing in ways, but also a bit off.
The overwhelming majority of court determinations in the US, Europe, and likely Israel, determine that the observation of title status is that is contested, imperfected, legally, and that in that case the preference of the courts is to not disrupt further, to allow current residents to perfect their title by compensation mostly.
That is the appropriate remedy in most cases of Gideon’s property or others like him, including Palestinian residents of some land that had previously been Jewish owned.
Also, the description of the camps is a bit innaccurate, as the reason that the camps are more analogous to 19th and 20th century cultural ghettos, that equally suffered from lack of access to employment, trade, self-determination.
His point about color-blind law is important. Israel does currently adopt a primarily nationalist interpretation of law, in favor of a primarily democratic interpretation.
It would be a great liberation for Israel to enforce its primary law that commits to equal due process for all residents, including the removal of the early 1950’s laws that prohibited return and denied Palestinians’ their day in court.
Its a reform process.
What about Sheikh Jarrah, Richard? What about the families driven out of their homes. Weren’t the places of the settlers destroyed after they left Gaza, but these can move freely into a home of a family since they have a deed on the land? Even a deed that has been declared fraud by an Israeli court?
This is interesting too. Richard Silverstein is best when there quivering anger closely beneath the surface of each line:
Tom Friedman heart Fatah
Compare.
A third uprising?
Gary M. Burge, The Electronic Intifada, 3 August 2009
…When Israel formally annexed East Jerusalem after the war of 1967 in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, it claimed Jabal Mukabber as part of the municipality of “Greater Jerusalem,” and its residents suddenly paid new taxes and had a world of new opportunities open to them. Or so it would seem.
Then Yahav had me look closer. Jabal Mukabber has no sewer system. And it has an antiquated water system that usually runs dry. Its streets are broken, there are no libraries or parks. The school is falling down. In other words, Jabal Mukabber’s infrastructure is broken because since 1967 the Israeli-controlled Jerusalem municipality spends 10 times more on Jewish neighborhoods and settlements than this one.
Now here’s the catch: When the Palestinians try to build and improve their lot, they are denied building permits in places like Jabal Mukabber. And if they build anyway, Israeli bulldozers destroy the building. …
Imagine that: Jabal Mukabber will be going dry while water in huge cement pipes is rushing under its fields to feed a nearby settlement. While Jabal Mukabber buys water off trucks, Nof Zion will be watering gardens and filling swimming pools. …
And Palestinians are forbidden by law to dig wells into the aquifer while at the same time enormous machines pump massive amounts of water from the same aquifer to feed the Israeli settlements. If you get behind the scenes, the frustration in these villages is boiling over.
You want to know any irony. Friedman articulated similar comments to the ones in the electronic intifada reference after the wall was built.
The frustration is increasing. The BIG question is how it gets resolved, not how it is justified in exploding.
The pressure cooker approach applies to the treatment of Palestinians (their patience is tried, to say the least). Similarly to Israelis when BDS is proposed as a “remedy”.
Both escalate, inflame, and distort communication necessary to mutually humanize.
I take it Richard, you were opposed to the boycott against apartheid in South Africa?
The BIG question is how it gets resolved, not how it is justified in exploding.
How about try to treat them at least half as well as Jewish Israelis? Wouldn’t that be an approach. Like if you take their tax, why not build sewers for them, and let them have water? Do you think forbidding them by law to help themselves, e.g. to get some of the water from the aquifers beneath helps?
The pressure cooker approach applies to the treatment of Palestinians (their patience is tried, to say the least). Similarly to Israelis when BDS is proposed as a “remedy”.
Look, Richard, I would absolutely accept that approach if the Israelis hadn’t wasted 42 years to let e.g. this people have waters on their taps like every Jew in Jerusalem surely has. Why should anything change in the next 42 years if it didn’t in the first?
Opposed to BDS, Richard? Were you also opposed to the blockade of Gaza?
Nicely put Donald,
It’s interesting how Richard subscribes to the notion that Israel’s doubel standards and irrationality should not only be tolerated, but accepted as the status quo and that the only sensible course of action is for the world to indulge Israel.
Levy’s article is important as a reminder that all of Israel is stolen property, not just the settlements in the WB. One of the most pernicious myths of Israel’s founding is that the land was legitimately purchased from the Ottoman-era owners. If Israel’s boundaries were redrawn to include only those lands to which it could claim some legal title, it would be a sadly shrunken state.
Richard, if we went by perfected land title the Israeli’s would own 6% of Israel proper and that’s it.
“”separate legal systems for Jews and Arabs”"…. that about says it all, defining israel as a racist state for anyone paying attention..
LeaNder thanks also for your comments..
The real Sophie never got even one second in the limelight, hogged by Jews. There is a giant unrecorded, or at least, unrecognized mass of humans, who have something to say
about both Jewish predators and Jewish killers, and the whys and wherefores. This is the undercurrent, it’s teflon. You can’t touch it, despite the many “eggs” it is has scrambled.
The BDS approach certainly takes two steps back BEFORE its hoped for three steps forward.
Obama’s engagement with clear expectations and rational definitions, accomplishes far more than the punitive BDS approach.
Radicals want liberals to fail, at least partially so that “I told you so” (a vanity, often a cruel one) prevails.
Humanists (true ones) want whatever method achieves the experienced greater good no matter who articulates it or how.
The BDS approach is the only onle that the Israelis will listen to. Israel’s leadership have always taken the position that they could do as they pleased because Washington woudl never have the spine to put it’s money where it’s mounth is. Israel have never had to face any consequences of their actions and as such, never paid the price for breaking agreements or flouting international law.
Obama’s engagement will amount to nothing if not backed up by a conviction to punish the Isaelis if they stonewall.
Its a reform process.
I agree. However, I think the evidence is conclusive that these hardcore racists aren’t going to reform by being asked nicely. I am in favor of using the minimum amount of pressure to modify Israeli behavior enough to satisfy American security requirements, e.g. an end to us being co-blamed for Israeli ethnic cleansing and colonization. However, that minimum pressure, whatever it is, should damn well be applied.
BDS is supposed to make you uncomfortable. Your complaints validate the approach. Hopefully it will do the job. If not, we should ratchet up the pressure until we see results. I try to keep things in perspective: I have faint sympathy for the ‘feelings’ or ‘tender sensibilities’ of a few tens of thousands of racist foreign colonists and their supporters, when by dint of neocon treachery our involvement in Iraq has led to around a million unnecessarily rotting corpses, including those of the neocon inspired ‘dual-use’ embargo (thanks Madeleine Albright! YOU are one classy lady!), and around five million refugees and homeless.
Madeleine Albright – 60 Minutes
We Think the Price Is Worth It
Albright “Apologizes”
Well, BDS does make me uncomfortable.
The largest way that it makes me uncomfortable, is in the manner that it distorts and derails the civil confidence building (but with definition) of Obama’s approach.
BDS is raging, punitive.
Obama will succeed at realizing a consented peace, an actual resolution. BDS will never. Again and again, this situation is DIFFERENT, materially different, qualitatively different, than South Africa.
The difference is the parity in numbers, the incompatibility of parties as currently constructed (especially by even the honorable non-violent resistance parties) thereby requiring a two-state solution, and the impossibility of masses of either community magically disappearing.
Obama’s approach has to build confidence on both sides of the conflict, not just Israel. If the Palestinians and the Arab world don’t believe that Obama is serious or is willing to put his money where his mouth is, then there won’t be confidence in Obama either way.
A consented peace and resolution will only be achieved if both sides believe it is in their interests. So long as Israel believes there are no consequences for it’s contonued vilation of international law and flouting of Obama’s policies, then there is no motivation for Isrel to come to the table. Had South Africa not faced sanctions and a boycott, there would have been no desire on the part of a population to change. Israel is no diffrent to South Africa. Nelson Mandella, Desmond Tutu and the father of apartheid, Prime Minister, Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd all stateed unequivocally that Israel is an aprtheid state.
Of course, not implementing BDS means that the Palestinians will go on suffering from teh BDS that Israel has inflicted on them folr 60 years, but that is comething you are clearly comfortable with.
Obama will succeed at realizing a consented peace, an actual resolution. BDS will never.
My first priority is the security of the United States and the American people. If that can be accomplished in a way that leaves Jews and Arabs an equitable and just, and therefore stable peace, then that’s great and I fully support it. However, I do not think that has ever been an objective of the Israeli political establishment. Ethnic cleansing and colonization of the OPT has enjoyed their almost unanimous support since 1967, and it appears that current Israeli public support is nearly as united.
I hope the ongoing American Jewish enlightenment will enable enough pressure to be brought upon Israel to change this. I think that BDS can play an important role in helping wake the sleepy, not through its punitive aspect, but through its inherent message of dissatisfaction. Unfortunately, many politically blind and overly comfortable people won’t get up and move when the waters are rising around them unless you light a fire under their asses. I would rather see them frustrated and angry with hurt feelings and singed bottoms than dr0wned.
If an American Jewish renaissance proves inadequate to affect a timely political realignment, and in spite of endless promises of undying support from American politicians**, the hard reality is that we Americans will look out for ourselves. Why should Americans suffer and die to help foreigners achieve an objective that they themselves do not want?
**Recall Israeli whining about the ’secret’ understanding with the Bush administration? These are politicians we are talking about! Most don’t feel bound by promises they themselves made five minutes ago. They certainly don’t feel bound by those made by someone else, especially when the commitments in question are diametrically opposed to their own interests. Thus far, the Lobby has in most cases made it in their interest to maintain policy continuity. However, the Lobby’s power is waning, and there will come a day when their best enticements aren’t enough to maintain American mollycoddling of Israeli colonists and their supporters.
That was exactly on my mind, sanctions. I asked myself, Did Richard support sanctions against Iraq, does he support sanctions against Iran? Did the results ever bother him? Did the results of the Iraq war?
Admittedly I still feel unfair in these confrontations with Richard and very uneasy after. Obviously I don’t give him a fair reading but somehow assume by now and always look for the pattern that lists Israel first, and ignores the Palestinian plight. Seems to add Palestinians for balance reasons only.
Isn’t Bei’lin about non-violent protest? Exactly what Richard demands. Have you ever read Richard respond to one of these articles?
Didn’t they admit they were throwing stones? Surely there was civil disorder, quite possibly a terrorist layer beneath the benign surface of non-violent protest. The stones shows obstruction of the military in the course of duty. Better keep this to yourself. Your job is to balance the anger on this list. Anger = Terrorism. Always starts with stones. Better remain silent. Israel is a democracy, there is law. They know what they do.
To my read, the italics indicate a quote. Those notes are NOT quotes of me.
BDS is punitive. IF it succeeds (and what is success is a very big and very important question to clarify), then for the pain inflicted, a greater good emerges.
That would be the best of its outcome.
If it doesn’t succeed (in the many ways that it can unravel), the effort could be civil war in the region, increased persecution of the “other”, long delay in the realization of Palestinian individual rights and national aspiration, further “disciplining” military actions on resistance which civilians bear the brunt of.
If its necessary, maybe that risk is called for.
If its unnecessary, then that risk is a sick vanity, the left or left/right’s flavor of neo-conservative armchair putting others at risk.
Obama makes it unnecessary. Maybe the raging is another voice to add to his weight.
BDS has been proven to be succussful in the past, so it would likely be successful with Israel. Obama has laid out his demands and Netenyahu has rejected them. Without forceful measures to back up Obama’s plicies, Netenyahu can just as easily continue to rejected them.
Obama does not make it necessary or unnecessary either way. That question can only be decided by Israel.
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