Palestinians have led many uprisings in the history of the Zionist colonization of Palestine, from the 1936 Great Palestinian Revolt, to the First and Second intifadas, to the Unity Intifada of 2021. Yet these grand revolts are only significant in how they have encompassed all the other revolts that have preceded them.
For the past ten years, I made my home in a small apartment in Shu’fat, just north of Jerusalem’s Old City, after having lived in Jerusalem for more than two decades. Shu’fat is one of only 18 small and heavily policed areas afforded to Palestinians in Jerusalem.
I can see the Al-Sahel (the meadow) area west of my balcony. Most of it remains empty, untainted by construction. Yet it is also a strange scene for a community that suffers from discriminatory restrictions in housing opportunities.
The policies of displacement of the Israeli colonial authorities targeting the Palestinian presence in the city systematically prevents us from gaining building permits. If we build without them, our houses are demolished. In some cases, we are even forced to destroy our own homes.
Throughout my ten years in Shu’fat, hardly any Palestinian homes have been built in Al-Sahel. Yet year after year, just a few hundred meters further to the west, the buildings of the Ramat Shlomo colony grow a little taller and expand ever outward, slowly devouring Shu’fat’s lands.