Caterpillar and Volvo bulldozers demolish a part of a historic hotel in occupied East Jerusalem. (Photo: Alex Kane)
[UPDATE: Hillary Clinton condemns the destruction:
[We are very concerned about the initiation of demolition of the Shepherd's Hotel in East Jerusalem. This disturbing development undermines peace efforts to achieve the two state-solution. In particular, this move contradicts the logic of a reasonable and necessary agreement between the parties on the status of Jerusalem. We believe that through good faith negotiations, the parties should mutually agree on an outcome that realizes the aspirations of both parties for Jerusalem, and safeguards its status for people around the world. Ultimately, the lack of a resolution to this conflict harms Israel, harms the Palestinians, and harms the U.S. and the international community. We will continue to press ahead with the parties to resolve the core issues, including Jerusalem, in the context of a peace agreement.]
Ramallah, West Bank–I was a witness to the destruction of a historic hotel in occupied East Jerusalem today, but activists bearing witness didn’t let the incident go on without making some noise.
After meeting with members of the Rifka Al-Kurd family, who now live steps away from illegal settlers who evicted members of the family to take over their home in Sheikh Jarrah, the delegation I am with received news of the hotel demolition.
Up the street from the Rifka Al-Kurd family residence is the Shepherd Hotel. Al Jazeera reports:
The Shepherd Hotel was razed by three Israeli bulldozers, early on Sunday, as part of a plan to build a new settlement of 20 units in the heart of the occupied city.
The hotel is located on the demarcation line between two Arab neighbourhoods of Sheikh Jarrah and Wadi al-Joz. The site will not only divide the two neighbourhoods but it will also change the aspects of occupied Jerusalem.
According to official documents, the hotel was owned by al-Quds Mufti, Haj Amin al-Hussaini, who was deported by the British rule in 1937. He later died in Lebanon in 1974.
The settlement project is funded by Irving Moskowitz, a wealthy Jewish-American gambling magnate.
Mammoth Caterpillar and Volvo bulldozers were working on razing a wing of the hotel.
Defending the demolition in front of the press was Elisha Peleg, a Jerusalem City Council member who is part of the right-wing Likud Party. Peleg insisted that “Jerusalem is the united capital of Israel,” while international activists and Palestinian women yelled “this is stolen land,” “shame on you” and disrupted his interviews with the media. In front of the gates to the hotel stood Israeli police and private security guards carrying rifles.
I told Peleg that he was a shame to Jews around the world. He turned around and told me that journalists shouldn’t voice their own opinions and that there was nothing wrong with building for Jews.
“They want to continue to take more land,” said Nasser Ghawi, a Palestinian resident of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah who has also seen his home taken away and given to Israeli settlers.
Israeli activists hastily organized a protest against the hotel demolition.
Alex Kane is a blogger and journalist based in New York City. He blogs on Israel/Palestine and Islamophobia in the U.S. at alexbkane.wordpress.com, where this post originally appeared. Follow him on Twitter @alexbkane.
Yea! Clinton has criticized Israel for
.
.
.
.
knocking down an old hotel.
Of course. No Palestinians had to be lined up and shot (lately) to vacate it, and no American citizens had to be crushed under the bulldozers to knock it down, so this is the one token instance where Clinton can make a pointless symbolic stand, not get any blood on her lily-white hands… and then go back to the important business of logging those checks we send Israel so they can build settlements on Palestinian land.
Clinton of course says nothing about Moscowitz. More hollow statements. But of course she has to obey her master, Haim Saban.
This is “not helpful” to the “peace process!” We’re “concerned” and “call on both sides not to take any unilateral action” that would “harm the peace process!” That said, our “commitment to Israel’s security is our top priority” and we have an “unshakable bond” to Israel. where there is “no daylight” between the U.S. and Israel to “defend itself.”
The US is an enabler of Israel’s most egregious conduct, and Hillary Clinton is an intellectually fraudulent blowhard. She knows that she has to kiss the feet/shine the shoes/lick the boots of the Zionist contributors to the Democratic campaign coffers if she ever wants to put a knife in Obama’s back and steal the 2012 Presidential nomination from him. I’d bet a bundle that after she made the statement, she worked the phones feverishly to Haim Saban saying that Obama made her say those words, honest to goodness.
I never understood why so many of Hillary’s critics say she has balls. She’s as craven and spineless as Obama.
Is she referring to a piece process that Chomsky described would have Israel and the US on one side of the table and the rest of the world on the other side?
By the way, Phil, saying that Hillary “condemns” the demolition of the Shepherd Hotel is giving way too much credit to her. Now this is the kind of backbone the US needs to grow . . . from the EU:
link to independent.co.uk
from the Independent article/link:
That has always been the goal — to “emphasise the Jewish identity of the city,” regional and global repercussions be damned.
A Jew bought the land from the Israeli government. After complying with the laws of the land, its his property to do with as he wants and Hillary Clinton has no say in its disposition.
As for the Mufti Husseini, he was an ally of Hitler. From where he is sitting now in hell, he is getting his richly deserved comeuppance to see Jews living on what once was his property. Such is history coming full circle!
Heh
So when is Israel going to start bombing the Ford Motor Company? Can we expect the Spirit of Saint Louis to be dismantled to make way for a display model of an exclusive gated community too?
Why is always about lucre with you, anyway, Mr. Zionist?
Oh! I almost forgot about a certain ranch in Crawford that’s among the family holdings of the late Prescott Bush. Would you like to send in the armored bulldozers there, too? That one I’ll actually stand aside for.
Additionally, by your logic, Nazi German elites acquired Jewish property, in Germany, Poland and elsewhere, through the same “perfectly legal means” as the Israeli colonization effort has acquired Palestinian property.
Irony. Sometimes, it’s painful and un-funny.
One word for you NormanF (I’m pretty sure I know what your ‘F’ stands for), yes just one idi-bidi little-long word for you:
Hizbollah.
Heh in reverse and doubled-up in yer ear!
NormanF,
Your name’s not even mideastern.
You don’t belong there in the mideast.
And neither do your children.
Or their childrens’ children.
You’ll always be outnumbered and you can’t fight wars indefinitely and you don’t want peace, so what the heck: you got a stupid plan in your hands buster and you’re passing it on to you kids!
But I guess you hate Arabs more than you love your kids, eh?
heh alright
link to mondoweiss.net
RE: “A Jew bought the land from the Israeli government.” – NormanF
EXCERPT FROM Mairav Zonszein, +972, 01/09/11:
SOURCE – link to 972mag.com
“A Jew bought the land from the Israeli government. After complying with the laws of the land, its his property”
Why is this so difficult to get for you people? The land did not and does not belong to the Israeli government. The transaction is therefore illegal. This Judaization, as Chaos points out, is the equivalent of Aryanization under the Nazis, but performed not even on German, but, say, on Polish, or ‘disputed’ territory, such as the Polish Corridor. And let’s remember that the Polish Corridor was part of the German Reich not some 3000, but some 20 years before Hitler reclaimed it. As you say: history coming full circle! So what’s your objection to the Mufti being an ‘ally of Hitler’, and why should Zionists who ally themselves with such policies not rot in hell?
Norman you don’t seem to have a good grasp of property law. once an invalid tranfer of property occurs until that is rectified all following transfers are also invalid. if a person did not gain ownership legally even if the transfer would normally be legal it is not a valid transfer. and since most of ISrael is land gained illegally it cannot be tranfered in a manner that is legal.
Subsequent property transfers are not invalid, they are just unperfected, subject to the possibility of subsequent claims.
There are MANY existing transfers of title to property that are subject to subsequent claims.
It makes it much more difficult when property title is contested, adding to the risk to the purchaser.
The remedy for those claims can include surrender of the property, subsequent compensation to the prior claimant, granting of access rights, or implied co-ownership status, all bearing on the subsequent owner (risk).
Shifting title to Palestinian state or popular control would be similarly contested, and subject to legal limitation as to subsequent clear title and even use.
It is in both Israel’s, Israeli’s, Palestine’s and Palestinians’ interest to perfect title to land that is currently contested.
That can happen within the context of a negotiated settlement, providing a consented legal path to perfect title to all contested property.
….Excuse me? Remind us again, Witty, what is your stance on Jewish property being returned to Jewish families after World War II?
thank for showing the bigot the precedent
No witty they are invalid and in most places hell even in Israel when it isn’t a jew taking palestinian land it is a crime to purchase stolen goods. if you don’t legally own something than any transfers are invalid. only someone as bigoted and hateful as you would say someone has the legal right to purchase stolen property
in any respectable court of law( like any western non Israeli one) if you came into court saying you knowingly bought stolen property(and lets be honest the jewish people in ISrael who buy palestinian land know its stolen) and claim you have a right to it you’d be laughed out of court.
– Irving Moskowitz
– George Wallace
– Hendrik Verwoerd
–> initial inductees into the Racism Hall of Fame
RE: “The Shepherd Hotel was razed by three Israeli bulldozers, early on Sunday…” – Al Jazeera
MY SNARK: The Israeli’s love to do their “dirty work” on Sundays when the American press is sleeping even more soundly than they do on the weekdays.
P.S. EXCERPT FROM Mairav Zonszein, +972, 01/09/11:
SOURCE – link to 972mag.com