Jaffa was once the pride of Palestinian culture, the bride of the sea. Then it was ethnically cleansed in 1948, by Zionist terrorist militias. A lot of the folks who lived there are in Gaza. You’d never know any of this from watching this new video of hipsters in Jaffa, on the NYT website, “Free Style in Tel Aviv.” A year ago the Times did the same thing, bringing Clare Danes to Tel Aviv. Going Rogue!
Unintentionally-sardonic excerpts from the latest promotion:
Omri Aviv. Hipster. “I really love the Jaffa area because it’s funky with a true Israeli look. … funky and authentic.”
Ofir Siman-Tov, on wearing women’s clothes in Jaffa: “This neighborhood is relaxed, chilling, and there’s freedom in the street.”
Tmima Svitelman: “There’s certainly an eclectic style here that I like very much, and I hope they preserve it.”
“…a true Israeli look. … funky and authentic.”
If only the natives had been a little more “funky and authentic” maybe they would have been allowed to stay.
Jaffa didn’t only contain people (Palestinians) who lived there. It also (as all other Palestinian areas did) contained land which was owned by Palestinians, land mostly confiscated by Israel in 1948 (I suppose). This raises all the questions of land ownership in Israel (Jewish land ownership in particular) in relation to the idea (and Israeli-Jewish fear) of a Palestinian right of return (PROR).
Here’s how I understand the history of much Jewish land tenure in Israel. Please correct me where I am wrong.
After 1948, much Palestinian land was confiscated (by the new state) as “absentee property” and then donated (by that same state) to a private (Jewish) organization which I shall call Jewish Land Trust (or, perhaps, Jewish National Fund). Thereafter, no-one else “owned” the land, non-Jews were forbidden to own or even to lease or even to sleep overnight upon any of this land, and Jews merely leased land from the trust. On this understanding, a Jewish family which today lives in a Palestinian stone house in Jaffa doesn’t own it but leases it from the trust.
There are several interesting points about this.
First, the state grabbed something not its own. It is reasonable to consider returning it to the proper owners, particularly in regard to PROR.
Second it donated these lands to a private trust (which was to hold the lands in perpetuity for the benefit of the Jewish people. That is to say, something nominally owned by the state (and thus by all the citizens of that state) was donated to a private trust which held the land for “the Jewish people” (whatever that means) but NOT for the citizens of the state of Israel.
Third, none of this land is today owned by individual Jews in Israel, but is still held by the trust.
If all this is so, then giving land back to Palestinian refugees (for example, land leased today by HIPSTERS in JAFFA) is merely a matter of judicially reconfiguring the trust so that its primary (and, in this case, its distributive) beneficiaries become the original Palestinian owners of the land. This could be individual people or villages, because much Palestinian land was held as communal land for grazing.
Perhaps the present leases, if not unduly lengthy, could be continued, but with realistic rents payable to the Palestinian owners. In that case, the Jewish residents could continue — for a while — to reside in JAFFA (even as HIPSTERS if they so chose). For a while. But ultimately, the reversion would be complete. And these Jews would be in the street (where the Palestinians are today).
That’s the best I can do to “respect” the “rights” of Jews who took (leases to) land in Palestine from the government (actually from the trust) knowing that the land had been confiscated by the government and then “alienated” by the government to the trust. The current Jewish lessees (or owners if there are any such) should not imagine that their title is good upon such a known history.
You’d never know from articles about hipsters in Williamsburg and on the Lower East Side that Native Americans used to live there.
Yafo (as the Israelis call it) or Jaffa (as the Arabs call it) is truly a tragedy. It was a gem.
The Israelis purchase it into primarily for its Arab mystique. They want the Arab mystique but not the Arabs.
I can NOT fault a Jew for wanting to live anywhere in Israel; but the remaining Arabs of Jaffa were not treated rightly.
I do not trust the narrative of either side.
When the Israelis took over, the remaining 4,000 or so Arabs were herded into the Ajami area (which became a holding camp). The Arabs were not allowed to return to their homes. The Jaffan Arabs were only a few blocks from their homes, yet their homes were declared abandoned, and given to Jews.
This is a real tragedy, even for the Jews. They will not be able to maintain the mystique of the Arab neighborhood without Arabs.
Jaffo was annexed by Tel-Aviv, probably to erase the memory of an Arab municipality.
Great video of Jaffa http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kQfjryqauU
“I can NOT fault a Jew for wanting to live anywhere in Israel”
Well, I guess that makes you a heartless sociopath then.
“I do not trust the narrative of either side.”
LMAO. Oh, that’s right, you’re the zio pretending not to be a zio. Got it.
“This is a real tragedy, even for the Jews. ”
Yeah, they’re the real victims here. The god damned people who stole someone else’s land and homes.
“They will not be able to maintain the mystique of the Arab neighborhood without Arabs.”
Yes, that the real god damned tragedy, that the theiving squatters might have to redecorate.