The Dispossessors

Stories from 1) Peace Now, March 2015 and 2) Haaretz, March 2014. Plus notes and links.

Vigilante group Ateret Cohanim work with police to clear out a Palestinian home. Photo by Richard Stitt, Demotix

The Government Helps the Settlers Take Over a Home in Silwan

Twenty years after an official committee of inquiry rejected this policy, the state continues to help Elad settlers take over a home in Silwan

Peace Now
March 10, 2015

12/3/15 update: The Ruweidis won their house after the court encouraged the settlers to withdraw their appeal for lack of legal standing. The house is now declared as owned by the Ruweidis and the declaration of it as “absentee property” is cancelled.

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The Ruweidi family home in Silwan, taken over by settlers.

Background:

In a response submitted to the Supreme Court prior to a hearing on Thursday, March 12, 2015, in the case of Elad settler organization against the Ruweidi family, the state argued that the family’s home in Wadi Hilweh in Silwan is considered “an absentee property” and, consequently, the Ruweidi family which has been living in the home since before 1967, is not the owner.

Keren Kayemet LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF), which comprises a link in the chain designed to transfer the properties to Elad, also presented support to the court for dispossessing the family from its property.

The use of the Absentees’ Property Law to evict Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem was severely criticized by an official committee of inquiry in 1992 (the Klugman Committee).

The system of taking over homes

In the 1980s, the Ministry of Housing and the Custodian of Absentees’ Property, acting under then-minister Ariel Sharon and together with KKL-JNF, began to transfer properties from Palestinians in Silwan to the Elad settlers’ organization. The system worked as follows: The settlers would provide information to the Custodian about homes they claimed to be absentee property, and the Custodian would declare them as such and transfer them via KKL-JNF to the Elad organization at ridiculously low prices.

The declaration of properties as “absentee property” is based on the Israeli Absentee Property Law according to which if an owner of a property in Israel lives in an enemy state (mainly one of the Arab states), the property is transferred to the Israeli Custodian for Absentee Property who can sell it to others.
The committee of inquiry formed by the Rabin government in 1992 (the Klugman Committee) determined that this was an improper scheme. Judge Mizrahi’s ruling in the Ruweidi case, which Elad is appealing, explained the method:

The report of the committee examining buildings in East Jerusalem known as the Klugman Report describes the pattern of action by entities that led to the transfer of properties to the Custodian of Absentees’ Property. These entities include non-governmental organizations (such as Defendant 2, the Elad organization) that identified the properties, and those making statements upon which the property was declared absentee. The report indicates that in most of the cases the Custodian of Absentees’ Property did not check the basic facts in the statements at all […];during the relevant period, the procedures of transferring land to the General Custodian were problematic, to say the least
(bold emphasis added)

In the early 1990s, Elad settlers entered homes in Silwan and took over a plot of land adjacent to the Ruweidi family’s home. It was only then that the family learned that the Custodian of Absentees’ Property had declared their home an absentee property and even sold it to the Development Authority. Himanuta, a subsidiary of KKL-JNF, purchased the home from the Development Authority, and all this without saying a word to the Ruweidi family inhabiting the property. In retrospect, it turned out that KKL-JNF transferred nearly all of the Silwan properties that came into the hands to the Elad organization.

In 1995, the head of the family, Hajj Jum’a Ruweidi, filed a lawsuit in district court to be declared the owner of the home. The court initially dismissed the lawsuit, but following an appeal to the Supreme Court, the case was sent back for further deliberation in the district court. New evidence Ruweidi submitted exposed the method of taking over properties in Silwan, and in May 2012 the district court ruled that the home belongs to Ruweidi.

The property-grabbing Zionist Organization Ateret Cohanim says it bought more than 1,000 square metres in this building on Salah al-Din Street. where it plans to build a yeshiva. Photo by Ilene Prusher. Photo by Ilene Prusher

The Elad organization filed an appeal of this ruling, and argued, inter alia, that the property is considered an absentee property. The state submitted a response on behalf of the Custodian of Absentees’ Property, the Development Authority and the Amidar company arguing that despite all that is said in the district court’s ruling, the home should be regarded as absentee property and should not be registered under the name of the Ruweidi family.

According to the state, the house of the Ruweidi’s (who live there since before 1967) is registered in the Jordanian books as owned by a Muhamad Salim Darwish who is an “absentee”, and therefore, the house does not belong to Jum’a Ruweidi. However, Jum’a Ruweidi argues that his father, Muhamad Salem Darwish who’s name was misspelled by the Jordanians was the owner, and that he inherited the house from him.

Homeless and sitting in the street: the Palestinian family who lived in the stolen house shown at the top. Same photographer.

The state’s stance, even if a legal argument can be made in support of it, indicates a different government policy than in the past. In 1968, a ministerial committee defined the mandate of the Custodian of Absentees’ Property in the new territories annexed to Jerusalem, and decided that “a property occupied by inhabitants … the Custodian will not deal with it.” That is, the state had no interest in evicting people from their homes and searching for potential absentees. This policy changed under then-minister Sharon when the Custodian became an instrument the state used to transfer property to the settlers. However, in the wake of the Klugman Committee’s report, the state vowed to change the procedures.

The fact that the state, together with KKL-JNF, is siding with the settlers in this case indicates that the settlement in Silwan has become, in effect, a nearly official government action. See an open letter by Jum’a Rwueidi to the JNF [below].
On December 30, 2013, Jum’a Ruweidi passed away, and his children continue to persue the case. On Thursday, March 12, 2015, at 11:30, the Supreme Court will hear the appeal submitted by Elad (Civil Appeal 4924/12

An open letter to JNF-KKL officials and supporters.

Next month, the district court in Jerusalem will hold its final discussion on another case in which in the JNF-KKL seeks to evict a Palestinian family from their home in Silwan via the “Absentee Property Law.” The owner of the house, Juma’a al-Ruweidi, 85, has written an open letter asking the JNF-KKL and its supporters to reconsider.

To JNF-KKL officials and supporters,

My name is Juma’a Muhammad Saalim al-Ruweidi. I am 85 years old, was born and raised in my house, so called property #51, here in Silwan, East Jerusalem. This house was built in the early 1900s, during the Ottoman period, and has always belonged to my family.

For almost two decades, members of your organization, the JNF-KKL, have been working to evict my family, using a false testimony to argue that our house should be considered “Absentee Property.” On February 27th, 2012, the district court will hold its final discussion of the case. I am asking you, in the name of my family and the people of Silwan, to do all in your power to make up for the injustice that has been done against my family over the past two decades, and to acknowledge that we are the rightful owners of the house.

On December 15th, 1987, a Palestinian man who is not from Silwan and has no connection to my family signed a document which declared our house to be “Absentee Property.” He did it on behalf of a lawyer working for the JNF-KKL and for ELAD, an organization whose goal is to “Judaize” our neighbourhood at the expense of its Palestinian residents. This declaration was entirely false.

His claim was that the house was owned by a man named Muhammad Saleem Darwish who died in Jordan, and not in the house. There is no one named Muhammad Saleem Darwish The real owner of the house, my father Muhammad Saalim Darwish, was in possession of an Israeli ID-card when he died, in 1969, in this very house and not in Jordan. The reason that the false claim was approved by the courts had to do with the fact that during the Ottoman and British period, documents were written in Latin characters, and thus both “saleem” and “saalim” were spelled S-A-L-I-M. We tried to explain this to the courts and to fix this simple and strange mix up, but they did not listen to us, and our property was declared Absentee Property.

They did so for a reason under the “Absentee Property Law,” if the Palestinian owner of a house in East Jerusalem is abroad in a country that does not have relations with Israel, the property can be declared Absentee Property. This law is unfair because it is only applied against Palestinians. In 1995, the Israeli government admitted that its use in East Jerusalem was unfair. And our case is one of an unfair law being used unfairly.

As in the case of our neighbours, the Sumarin family, the Custodian for Absentee Property transferred our house to the Israeli Development Authority, which in turn transferred the property, in 1991, to the JNF-KKL and its subsidiary company Himanutah.

Over the past two decades, my family has been forced into a long and difficult legal process in which we sought to cancel the declaration of our house as “Absentee Property,” which it never was.

In 2004, the District Court ruled that our family “failed to prove ownership,” so we decided to appeal to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court accepted our appeal in 2010, and returned the case to the District Court, asking them to re-examine a number of questions, especially the question of the reliability of the Palestinian man who signed the false document claiming that our house is “Absentee Property,” as it turned out this same man had declared a series of properties throughout East Jerusalem as “Absentee Properties” in a wholesale manner that was proven false in other cases.

Our struggle is a hard one. The settlers and the courts are powerful, but we know that we are in the right. We also know that there are many good people in Israel and in the rest of the world who are aware of our plight, and who will stand by us. It is not too late to remedy the injustice: the final hearing of our case will be held on February 27th, 2011.

JNF-KKL’s subsidiary company, Himanutah, can still inform the court that it has decided to withdraw its claim of ownership that was based on unjust procedures and false facts.

I urge you, as someone nearing the end of his days: please do not make my family into refugees, kicked out of their home by an organization that works in the name of the Jewish people.

Sincerely,

Juma’a Muhammad Saalim al-Ruweidi

http://www.silwanic.net/public/ruweidi/ruweidi_arabic.pdf

Original letter in Arabic, pdf file

On the second day of Ramadan, Ateret Cohanim Security personnel and Palestinians Clashed in Jerusalem’s Old City. Jerusalem, Israel, Ramadan 12th August 2010.

With the help of Israeli police, a settler simply commandeers a Palestinian home in Jerusalem. The police throw out the Palestnian residents, the settlers move in. Photo from Settlement Watch, E. Jerusalem.

Israeli settler group buys property in heart of East Jerusalem

Ateret Cohanim says it purchased part of a ‘large and strategic building’  {see above} in heart of Arab commercial district.

By Ilene Prusher, Haaretz
March 12, 2014

Ateret Cohanim says it bought more than 1,000 square meters in this building, on Salah al-Din Street in East Jerusalem, where it plans to build a yeshiva. Photo by Ilene Prusher

Ateret Cohanim, a religious Zionist organization that buys properties in the Old City and elsewhere in East Jerusalem in order to settle Jews there, says it has bought a “significant portion” of a building at the heart of the commercial district in East Jerusalem.

In an email to supporters, Executive Director of Ateret Cohanim-Israel Daniel Luria said the group had purchased more than 1,000 square meters in “a very large and strategic building” situated across from the Old City (in the area between Damascus Gate and Herod’s Gate).

Photographs attached to the email show the structure, which is located at the end of Salah al-Din Street. Built under Jordanian rule, it is home to East Jerusalem’s only full-service post office as well an Israeli police station. One picture showed the renovations being carried out on the interior of the building. Luria wrote that it would be used as an education center, with housing for pre-army yeshiva students.

Mati Dan, left, chairman of Ateret Cohanim, talking to American Repulican candiadate, 2014.

The email, sent on March 11 with the header “Great news from Ateret Cohanim,” announced a “very recent acquisition … as yet unknown in general public or by local Arabs.” It described the property as having been bought “by a generous donor” and requested recipients of the email to keep the news to themselves until the building is ready for occupancy – sometime around Passover, which begins April 14. The email was timed to coincide with Purim, traditionally a time for generosity. It urged supporters to donate toward building the dormitory, beit midrash (study hall), kitchen, small apartment for the yeshiva head and “security room furnishings.”

Ateret Cohanim ‘security personnel’/ vigilantes attend at a house take-over in Jerusalem. Photo by Richard Stitt, Demotix

“This is a call for Am Yisrael [the people of Israel] who wish to see Jerusalem remain a united city and who agree that any Jew has a right to learn and live anywhere in Jerusalem – to partake in this new project,” the email reads. “This is a chance of a lifetime to make a difference and strengthen Jewish life in the heart of Jerusalem!”

The message also notes that this is “the first acquisition of its kind, in the area, which is in the heart of the commercial Arab district of Jerusalem – and in the general vicinity of Sultan Suleiman,” the road that runs alongside that part of the Old City. It noted that work is “being done quietly under the radar.”

From the outside, there are no signs of the work going on inside, though it is clear that the busy post office on the first floor and the police station do not account for all the space in the large landmark building.

An Israel Post legal document, a copy of which was obtained by Haaretz, indicates that the building is at least partly owned by the Israel Lands Administration, which leases it to the postal service.

Since its founding in 1978, Ateret Cohanim has sought to buy properties in East Jerusalem, primarily in the Old City’s Muslim Quarter, in which to house its students as well as other followers in a campaign to create a “Jewish presence” throughout the city, including the parts Israel occupied in 1967. But neither Ateret Cohanim nor a competing organization, Elad, have managed to settle Jews in the exclusively Palestinian neighbourhoods and commercial district close to Damascus Gate.

David Be’eri, founder and manager of Elad, in November 2011 at one his court appearances over property disputes. Photo by Emil Salman

In a related development, last month the Jerusalem Planning and Building Committee approved the construction of a 12-story building in nearby Sheikh Jarrah for Ohr Somayach, an Israeli yeshiva geared to English speakers from abroad. As reported in Haaretz, the city put the plan for the yeshiva on the agenda despite objections from city council members and its own planning policy department.

The Palestinian-Authority-appointed governor of Jerusalem, Adnan al-Husseini, said he was deeply dismayed to hear of the plan to put an Ateret Cohanim yeshiva in the heart of East Jerusalem’s commercial district.

Irving Moskowitz, wealthy American businessman, aka a philanthropist. ‘His philanthropy, in part, seeks to create a Jewish majority in Arab neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem by funding settlers to take over those buildings which were Palestinian homes’ notes his Wikipedia entry.

“This is a main street in East Jerusalem, and I don’t see any logic in that. Our response is that this is something that is not fair. They should put a yeshiva in West Jerusalem, in a place where it serves the Jewish community,” Husseini told Haaretz. “Moreover, to try to settle Jews in these neighborhoods is just a waste of their time. East Jerusalem is the capital of the state of Palestine. We are all talking about a two-state solution, and it’s on the borders of 1967,” he added. “The Palestinians are insisting on that and it’s not going to change.”

Various nongovernmental organizations that track settlement activity in East Jerusalem said they were unaware of the acquisition. Daniel Seidemann, a lawyer and Jerusalem expert who runs the organization Terrestrial Jerusalem, says that yet another acquisition in a East Jerusalem neighborhood points to a trend that threatens peace talks. “We are witnessing an uptick in government-backed attempts to create settlement enclaves in existing Palestinian neighborhoods. These undermine the stability of Jerusalem, they threaten to Hebronize Jerusalem, and it is another obstacle on the path to any kind of permanent status agreement. It’s not surprising but it’s very distressing.”

Aviv Tatarsky, a field researcher for Ir Amim, said Ateret Cohanim has been trying, so far without success, to obtain building permits for a one-acre plot it purchased on a side street not far from the building on Salah al-Din Street.

“Many times these groups manage to get some small points and then it makes it easier for them to connect the dots, but in this case, they haven’t managed to advance it,” says Tatarsky of the nearby parcel of land.

“Settlement in a Palestinian area, and the security contingent that inevitably comes with it, does not bring anything good to the area,” Tatarsky said of the plans to use the newly acquired space as a yeshiva. “There’s no reason to have a yeshiva next to Herod’s Gate,” he said.

Notes and links
Ateret Cohanim (“Crown of the Priests”), also Ateret Yerushalayim, is an Israeli Jewish organization with a yeshiva located in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. It works for the creation of a Jewish majority in the Old City and Arab neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem.

Founded in 1978, it was originally known under the name Atara Leyoshna (lit. “[returning the] former glory”). After many disagreements about the nature of its activities, the organization closed and re-opened as a new association called Ateret Cohanim with a yeshiva. While the activities of Atara Leyoshna focused mainly on locating Jewish assets in the Muslim Quarter and transferring them into Jewish hands through legal means, the activities of Ateret Cohanim involves acquiring houses in the Muslim quarter or renting them from government companies and populating them with Jews. The association owns many buildings in the Old City, where over 80 families live. Some estimate that 1,000 Israeli Jews live in houses that Ateret Cohanim purchased in the Old City since 1978. It controls at least seven other organizations that are not registered in Israel, but they are registered in tax shelters, like the Virgin Islands and Guernsey.

The head of the association is Mati Dan. It depends heavily on donations from American Jewish businessman Irving Moskowitz and his wife Cherna Moskowitz.

Ir David Foundation, commonly known as Elad [El’ad]  an acronym for the Hebrew for   “to the City of David”) is a Jerusalem-based, Israeli association which aims to strengthen the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, create a Jewish majority in Arab neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem and renew the Jewish community in the City of David, which is also part of the neighbourhood of Silwan. The foundation works to achieve its goals by tourism, education, archaeological excavations and obtaining homes in the area to establish a Jewish presence. From Wikipedia