Even compared to the low ethical standards which most people, outside the United States, ascribe to the actions of the Israeli government of occupation, the recent decision of their Supreme Court to evict long-time residents of Arab neighborhoods and to replace them with Jewish Israelis signals a particularly low point in the Jewish state’s brutally harsh treatment of Palestinians.
In a sparsely reported incident which occurred on Sunday, August 2, Ofra Ben-Artzi (pictured), the sister-in-law of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, was detained by police in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem. The 58 year-old Ben-Artzi, an editor for the anti-occupation magazine, HaKibush, spent several hours in police custody before being released without any charges being filed. Her apparent crime was her sympathy with the Palestinians who had recently been evicted from their homes.
Ben-Artzi is the mother of a conscientious objector who served time in a military jail for refusing to serve in the Israel Defense Forces. She is the wife of the brother (Matania Ben-Artzi) of Sarah Netanyahu, the present Prime Minister’s wife.
Ben-Artzi described what she saw while being held in a police vehicle in an article reprinted here. She wrote about what she terms "a complete Judaization of the neighborhood" and had some harsh comments about her brother-in-law, the Prime Minister:
I have spent an hour sitting there. We went deeper in the neighborhood, into the area where the families had been expelled from their homes. I could see the ultra-Orthodox men and women, in their distinctive clothing, walking quietly along the road, towards the grave of Shimon the Tzadik. No police blocked their way. I reflected that I was seeing the beginning of an innovation. No longer simply a "Jews Only" road. From now on, roads would be reserved to a specific kind of Jews, to those who "look Jewish", those who – as PM Netanyahu once said "have not forgotten what it means to be a Jew." Nor did the bars prevent me from seeing that Umm Kamel’s tent, where she had been living since her own expulsion, was also gone. The ground where it had stood was completely bare, the whole area infested with police – hundreds at least, possibly thousands. From the floor of the police car I saw what looked like a complete Judaization of the neighborhood. I would not be surprised if they also take off the very name of Sheikh Jarrah from the signs and the map.
In the story about her arrest in Ha’aretz (Hebrew edition, only), Ben-Artzi is quoted as pulling no punches in her criticism of the recent evictions of long-time Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah.
Their are no words to describe the injustice and folly of this, we are walking with our open eyes into the abyss. If we will not be smart enough to live together, Arabs and Jews, as in the days of the [British] Mandate when there were two mayors in Jerusalem, then we will be dragged into transfer, and if this is not enough, what will we do then? Erect concentration camps?
The two latest evictions came as a result of an Israeli Supreme Court decision which says that decades old property titles, held by Jewish families, were valid despite the owners’ absence for the better part of this century. The Jewish families claim that their descendents were illegally and forcibly evicted by Palestinians in the 20s. The Palestinian families say that they have legal titles dating back to the Ottoman times and that the Jewish documents are forgeries.
The court ruling seems to open the door for Palestinians to make claims upon property that they abandoned during the 1948 War. This is a result that one would think the court would certainly want to avoid. Ben-Artzi states that the court has opened a "Pandora’s Box." One property that she says could be transferred to Arab ownership is owned by the Prime Minister’s own family. Of course, Israel would never apply the court decision to expel Jewish residents.
I know that Bibi’s family has a house in Talbiyeh and it also is abandoned property, maybe it also will be returned to its owners. Here is the famous Haroun al-Rashid villa in that neighborhood. It is an example of another "abandoned property" that could be returned to its original Palestinian owner.
Talbiyeh (or Talbiyah, Talbeih) is a neighborhood in now Jewish West Jerusalem in which there are many opulent homes and villas that were owned by Palestinians, who, according to the the Hebrew Wikipedia, fled as a result of a campaign of threats by the main Jewish militia (Hagana) in 1948. Talbiyeh remains an exclusive Jerusalem neighborhood, and of course few if any Palestinians live there today.
This piece was published yesterday at Common Dreams.
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We’ve passed the end of the beginning. Now we’re seeing the beginning of the end.
Here is how dishonest the cleansing of East Jerusalem is becoming (besides courts ruling for lies) –
“…srael constructed sections of the Annexation Wall in East Jerusalem is a way that annexed large areas of Palestinian lands by isolating the residents from their land, and also constructed the Wall route in a manner that transferred the Palestinians into ‘illegal residents’ although they carry Jerusalem identity cards as they became on the western side of the Wall, under the municipal district of Jerusalem but without legal status or documents.”
“Encouraged by the Israeli policy of demolishing Palestinian homes in Jerusalem and by a decision of the Israeli High Court to evacuate Palestinian families and replace them with settlers, extremist settlers have stepped-up their attacked against the Palestinians in East Jerusalem and several areas in the West Bank.”
etc.
we are on the other side of a very slippery slope while mainstream israeli and us culture seem oblivious to where this is headed… kudos for her to addressing this very troubling issue, expecially in light of her related position to netanyahu..
I must say that stories like this give me hope that Israel can cure itself from the self destructive path she is on. I see the same dynamic in the family I married into. Among my immediate inlaws there is one, a quite successful politician, that has joined J street and his brother is a rightwing Likudnid that served in the IDF (but never succeeded in integrating himself into Israeli society and moved back to the US). The rest of the family consider themselves pro-Israel but generally avoid the subject in family gatherings for the sake of unity.
But I detect increasing sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians among this admittedly small sample. I think the power of the Israeli lobby in this country will be broken one family at a time. It is encourging to see this family division is happening as well within the Netanyahu clan as well.
It will be too late. I’m afriad it’s already too late. The settlement project will not be halted and will not be reversed, no matter how many eyes are opened to the destructiveness of this path. By the time enough minds are changed, the damage will be done, the land of Palestine will be in Israeli hands and everyone will sigh and say, “That’s too bad. Too bad it wasn’t stopped earlier when it was possible. But it’s no longer possible and we can’t move all those people, so the Arabs will just have to suck it up and take the crumbs.”
What is needed now is to build the foundations for a campaign for a one-state solution, once it is clear to everyone that this is the only remaining path to justice.
Ben-Artzi is a tiny minority within Israel. There will be no fixing from inside. This minority has been working every which way, to sway the public and we are branded disloyal traitors, met with unlawful detention and violence from the state and our fellow countrymen. At this point we believe that only pressure from without could help.
I recall reading somewhere, sometime, that Palestinian residents of the annexed portions of East Jerusalem are allowed to claim Israeli citizenship if they wish too. Is this true or not?
If you could organize people like that to PUT together a network on Cable & TV to run in the UK/ USA/ Europe/ Illegal Occupation areas this may help at least let hiarchy know there are others out there whom do not believe in the ways of wars for too many of them..not to mention the aparthieds, separations, are just a means for the corps and hiarchy to become richer on the backs of the citizens on top of the tax payers paying for well ever for the onslaught of really atrocious ways of how 1945 has evolved into a usa backed cult. The money should stop in every way possible all loans should be called in. They are not going to do what the usa says no matter what. Unless you publically shove this issue into the faces of the world via a show everynight all day 356. Mybe the reprogramming their cult ways they can be reassimulated back into a society somewhere else after they are cured.
And may everyone with a platform politically ….Please start using some consistancy in the efforts to comound the messages, and maybe a social working deprograming effort could be used in a live and/or taped telecast with a MondoChannel via Cable and public broadcasting, and to just speak out is not ever going to be enough legal actions and filings against these obvious ” Never Again”…programmed people. BE FREE live for you and not some…blind faith in an obviously un verifiable way
Are there any Athiest reading the mondo sites…if so what are your views on these topics related to mass land grab and evildoings for a religous purpose, and with tax payer blind to truths…do even mention our government and the other one that runs it seemingly covertly (no matter which presidency) in the past and present. Makes you wonder if the presidency is just a seat used by the best candidate and the votes would not matter and the same behind the scene escapades regardless of whom wins…???
What person can be quoted for saying, If Arafat is gone the peace process would succeed..Arafat is the only obstiscal.
Well it has been a while now and the puppet abass and crownie daqclan whom are not the legal reporesentitves be told to leave .
The people only voted the hammas for personal reasons and as soon as the liquor stoes closed ..the people had reacted to it , they are not closed no more.
If a new election with an independent part of newcommers with a few old timers.
A 67 border could be successful as long as the wholy city is Nuetral with no police of any type and no residents where there should not be. all settlements must be removed completely and the rightful owner given back their property. After a few years everyone can star selling the right of return property right outright to whomever without reprisal taking only five or so years with no bloodshed….it that difficult ..has the logic just dissapeared from these hiarchys and cults
They also say, “If the Palestinians would just give up terror/shooting rockets, they would get everything they want.”
Well, Palestinian terror attacks have essentially disappeared, and rocket attacks from Gaza have just about ceased, but the Israelis don’t seem to have noticed and nothing really changes, particularly the rhetoric.
It was never about terror, it was always about grabbing the land and expelling the people.
The question is relative to the rule of law.
There are rule of “laws”, which is different qualitatively than the rule of “law”.
The big difference is in the application of precedent and legal consistency. Rules of laws can be arbitrary, prejudicial, discrimminatory.
Rule of law in contrast is by definition coherent, integrated, predictable, accountable, color-blind.
The Zionist right vacilates between rule of law and rule of “laws”. The Palestinian nationalist and religious parties vacilate between advocacy for rule of law and rule of “laws”. The militant left vacilates between rule of law and rule of “laws”.
For radical moderates, the rule of law is THE content, and to reject that is to reject the foundation of the whole moderate “ideology”.
Some philosophers have argued that the world itself is not consistent, not coherent, that the seeking consistency and coherency is itself a faith.
I and Einstein aren’t there yet. That is what Einstein meant when he said “God does not throw dice”, that nature/reality is coherent or whole, and knowable by reason.
“God does not throw dice”
Yes, but that quote marks the point of Einstein’s end of understanding too.
Einstein’s view was that law was a fabric, coherent.
Not legislations, but reason, of which legislation was a customization.
Einstein’s view was that law was a fabric, coherent.
Richard, I start to like you. I’ll create a character called “Richard Witty” and he will be very, very insistent. Basically a good guy, that feels he has to single-handedly prevent an imminent catastrophe. He thinks there are times for decisions and times to act, and act consistently.
Not legislations, but reason, of which legislation was a customization.
A German criminologist once asked for the files in corruption cases for her thesis. Some of the law courts didn’t want her to have them and declared them closed. If remember matters correctly–I’ve been told this by a guy that works in the field and now teaches the topic–many of the files she couldn’t use were such dismissed actions.
Yes there is power but not necessarily the power of God.
What did Einstein talk about?
God’s laws?
or
Nature’s laws?
He talked about the laws of the creator of nature.
“The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer.” Albert Einstein
Einstein is definitely a character.
Einstein’s faith was in reason, that the universe is coherent and consistent (that it was our understanding that was incoherent, disconnected, inconsistent).
That applies in legal law as well, not only science or its underlying principles. I think he would take exception to the new age physics approach which interprets the Heisenberg uncertainty principle as suggesting that nature is equally coherent and spontaneous, rather than primarily coherent.
In legal law, the application of consistency, coherency, implies that there is a natural “law”, a reason that even constitutions are subject to. That conflicts with the American conservative constitutional approach which assumes that only passed legislation is law, that there are no rights until they are articulated and legislated. That is similar to religious injunction.
Witty: “In legal law, the application of consistency, coherency, implies that there is a natural “law”, a reason that even constitutions are subject to. That conflicts with the American conservative constitutional approach which assumes that only passed legislation is law, that there are no rights until they are articulated and legislated. That is similar to religious injunction.”
USA Legal jurisprudence has been debating the two approaches for scores of years.
If you take Jurisprudence in law school you better not argue against the professor’s political bias when you participate in assigned cases.
There aren’t enough good committed thinking organised people in Israel to stop the coming disaster.
There are too many people who think everything will work out. Too many people who think that the current status quo in the region is eternal. That maybe 400,000 settlers closed the deal. Too many people who think that the world owes Israel something or that the world needs a Jewish state that can do things like force 80% of the people of Gaza onto international food aid. People who think that evil and Israel are mutually exclusive ideas. People who believe the IDF is a force for good and that 3 years of service running the checkpoints and humiliating the Palestinians is normal and has no long term effects.
Ben-Artzi is Netanyahu’s sister in law?! that’s fantastic. I didn’t know that. I wonder if this explains the leniency in which us traitors are treated with (considering the usual rhetoric is that we should kiss their boots because in an Arab country we’d been executed).
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