Anger in E. Jerusalem still rising


October 22, 2014
Sarah Benton

The AFP analysis of the means used to transfer property from Palestinian to Israeli Jewish ownership is followed by a report of the new police unit for East Jerusalem.


The Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque compound sit atop the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, a densely-populated Palestinian neighbourhood on a steep hillside flanking the southern walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, October 21, 2014. Caption Al Monitor, photo by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP

By hook or by crook, settlers rack up E. Jerusalem gains

By fair means or foul, Jewish settlers are notching up property gains in the heart of Arab east Jerusalem through a series of shady deals involving frontmen or straw companies.

By AFP / Al Monitor
October 21, 2014

The process by which such properties are acquired is shrouded in mystery, with the new Jewish occupants often moving in under the cover of darkness to avoid a major confrontation with residents.

The latest controversial acquisitions took place in Silwan, a densely populated Palestinian neighbourhood on a steep hillside flanking the southern walls of Jerusalem’s Old City.

In the past three weeks, hardline settlers have moved into 35 apartments there, sparking anger and consternation among Palestinians who vehemently oppose such moves as a hostile attempt to Judaise Silwan.

Some were allegedly acquired fraudulently, and others legally.

Jewish groups buying up property in the heart of Arab neighbourhoods is an explosive political issue because it touches on the future of east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as capital of a future state.

The groups are looking to establish a contiguous Jewish presence in the area, thereby preventing any future division of the Holy City under a peace deal with the Palestinians.

‘WE DIDN’T KNOW’
One of the structures taken over in Silwan this week was a three-storey building owned by the Rajabi family, which had been looking to sell the property and its adjoining land.

Because the neighbourhood is very close to the Old City and the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third-holiest site in Islam, the family was looking for a Palestinian buyer.

One day, a man whose family is known for its commitment to the Palestinian cause approached them.

“He said he wanted to buy it for his cousin who lives in Dubai,” Zuheir al-Rajabi said, explaining how they agreed to sell it for 450,000 Jordanian dinars ($635,000/500,000 euros).

Today he realises it was a mistake.

“I hate myself for selling, people are accusing us of knowingly selling” to the settlers, he said.

On Tuesday, his family paid for an advertisement in the main Palestinian newspaper showing the purchase agreement with the name of the buyer and insisting they had no knowledge of the true nature of the sale.

“We should have been more careful but we cannot take it back. The settlers are like a cancer which spreads through the body until it dies,” Rajabi said.

Selling land to Israeli settlers is viewed as treason by the Palestinians and carries a penalty of life imprisonment with heavy labour. There have been several cases in which the perpetrators have been killed.

FRONTMEN, STRAW COMPANIES
Khalil Tufakji, a Palestinian cartographer, says rightwing groups use a variety of methods to obtain property in east Jerusalem.

“Either they use the Israeli ‘absentee property’ law or they do it through agents,” he said, referring to legislation adopted in 1950 which allows the confiscation of land owned by Palestinians who fled or were forced out during the 1948 war.


A Palestinian boy walks past a building that Israeli settlers purchased in the east Jerusalem district of Silwan, a densely-populated Palestinian neighbourhood. Photo on October 21, 2014 by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP

The agents are Palestinian straw men who carry out the purchase on behalf of rightwing groups in a bid to grant a legitimacy to the transaction before the courts, he said.

“There are more and more of these agents who are operating in east Jerusalem and in areas close to the Green Line,” said Ahmed Ruweidi, adviser on Jerusalem affairs to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

The Green Line is viewed by the international community as the de facto border between Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Ruweidi said there was a growing wave of public anger against such middlemen, who are understood to receive huge sums of money for their services.

“There is huge public pressure against such agents with people waging campaigns on social media and spreading their names and photos,” he said.

Other transactions are done through little-known foreign firms, which have been denounced by the Palestinians as shell companies.

But their methods of operation are a closely guarded secret.

Avi Segal, an attorney who represents international companies that invest in Jerusalem real estate, refused to divulge methods of operation for purchasing property for Jewish groups in east Jerusalem.

“All of the deals in the areas of City of David and Shiloah village were carried out legally and legitimately, that’s it,” he said, using the Hebrew name for two parts of Silwan where Jews resided.

Under terms of the so-called Clinton parameters for a political settlement in Jerusalem, the eastern part of the city would be divided along ethnic lines, with Israel having sovereignty over Jewish settlements, and the Palestinians gaining sovereignty over Arab neighbourhoods.

Increasing Jewish presence in densely populated Arab areas would stack the balance in Israel’s favour, Tufakji said.

Today, around 500 settlers live in Silwan among a population of 45,000 and the recent acquisitions have triggered a flood of protest among the Palestinians as well as from abroad.


Israel police plan new unit to fight Jerusalem unrest

By Jonah Mandel, AFP
October 21, 2014

Israel’s top police officer on Tuesday pledged a new task force to combat Jerusalem unrest, after Palestinians hurled Molotov cocktails at an apartment taken over by Jewish settlers.

“We are moving ahead with a comprehensive programme incorporating the latest technology, intelligence gathering and the establishment of a new police unit for dealing with incidents,” Commissioner Yohanan Danino told officers.

“Jerusalem residents are entitled to a high level of personal security…and the issue is at the top of Israel Police’s priorities,” he said in remarks carried on the force’s official Twitter feed.
No one was injured in the incident late Monday in the flashpoint east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan, where a group of Palestinians fired flares and threw petrol bombs at the building, a police statement said.

No serious damage was caused and no arrests were made.

The building was one of two structures housing 10 apartments that were taken over by Jewish settlers before dawn on Monday, sparking fierce local opposition.

Such takeovers have also been strongly condemned by the international community.

Silwan is a densely populated Palestinian neighbourhood that flanks the southern walls of Jerusalem’s Old City and has been the scene of frequent clashes involving a small group of hardcore settlers, the Israeli police and stone-throwing youths.

In addition, since July’s killing of a Palestinian teen by Jewish extremists and a bloody 50-day Israeli military offensive in Gaza that ended on August 26, Palestinians youths have been almost constantly on the streets throughout Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem throwing stones and petrol bombs at police, motorists and public transport.

There has also been a spate of clashes between Palestinian youths and Israeli police over Jewish visits to Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound — Islam’s third holiest site.

The site is also revered by Jews as the location of the biblical Jewish temple, considered Judaism’s holiest place.

– ‘Riots on Temple Mount’ –
Danino on Tuesday vowed to restore order.

“We cannot ignore public disorder incidents; stone-throwing, attacks with fireworks, throwing of petrol bombs, which characterise riots on Temple Mount and other areas in the city and its surroundings,” he said, using the Hebrew term for the Al-Aqsa compound.

The Silwan clashes erupted three weeks ago when settlers moved into more than 25 apartments in the area that they claimed to have purchased.

Ateret Cohanim, an Israeli organisation aiming to increase the Jewish presence in east Jerusalem, said the acquisitions would double the number of Jews living in that part of Silwan, known in Hebrew as Kfar Shiloach.

The group claims that particular area was inhabited by Jews from Yemen in the late 19th century.
Israel seized Arab east Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it, in a move never recognised by the international community. Some 200,000 Israelis live there alongside about 300,000 Palestinians.

Israel regards the entire city as its “undivided capital” and does not see construction or the purchase of houses in the eastern sector as settlement activity.

While the Israeli government is behind major construction efforts in the area, it says it has no say over private real-estate deals in east Jerusalem.

Earlier this week, President Reuven Rivlin spoke out against such deals conducted between Arab sellers and extreme rightwing groups.

“Jerusalem cannot be a city in which building is done in secret or where moving into apartments is done in the dead of night,” he said on Sunday.

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