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July 26th, 2009. Israeli settlers occupy a house in Sheik Jarrah, a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem. This is part of a larger plan by settlers, the most visible of them, Irving Moskowitz, an American Jew, to put facts on the ground in East Jerusalem, halting any attempts by Palestinians to claim East Jerusalem as a capital for their future state. In the meantime what is occurring is nothing short of ethnic cleansing of thousands of Palestinians from homes they have lived in for fifty years or more.
Israel engage in effective ethnic racist Steps to forcibly alter the residency of a Palestinian neighborhood
The “High Court of Justice” has issued an evacuation order for one of the 28 houses to be evacuated and demolished in the Palestinian Al Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem. As an occupied part of the West Bank, Israel has no right to issued and carryout such decisions, especially that East Jerusalem remains one of the main issues to negotiate between the Palestinian and the Israeli sides. The Israeli court decision is neither legally justified or morally. However, and in this respect is has been leading a methodological campaign against the Palestinians’ rights and very existence in the occupied city of East Jerusalem.
The storyline of Al Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem started out back in the year 1985 when the contrive of the planned neighborhood illegally assumed control of a Palestinian expropriated property (the Shepherd Hotel) from the Israeli custodian of absentee property who has taken control of the hotel following the 1967 war, despite the fact the heirs of the rightful owner of the hotel (Grand Mufti Al-Haj Amin Al-Husseni) are still alive and long legal residents of Jerusalem.
The plan for the new Israeli neighborhood
The house is the subject of a legal dispute in which the Jewish claimants, who say they purchased the property legally, have been granted the right to enter the premises, although a stop work order had been issued for the property and was scheduled to take effect at 5 p.m. on Tuesday.
Sheikh Jarrah residents, however, said on Monday that the home had belonged to an elderly woman, Mrs. Hijazi, who had recently passed away, and that the Jewish claimants had falsified their ownership papers for the house.
“We have papers dating back to the Turkish government that show this home to be Palestinian property,” said Mitri Nasrawi, who works for the Coalition for Jerusalem, a Palestinian group.
(IsraelNN.com) Despite his stated support for permanent Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu recently froze a major construction project in the capital city as a diplomatic gesture to the United States. So reported Channel 10 news correspondent Raviv Drucker, citing testimony from Jerusalem city officials.
Netanyahu has denied the report.
According to Drucker, Netanyahu ordered a halt to a construction project in Pisgat Ze’ev, a major Jewish neighborhood that is home to more than 40,000 Israelis. The project was to provide another 900 housing units in the area.
Several senior officials in the Olmert administration indicated that they would be willing to give the PA some Jerusalem neighborhoods, but all insisted on maintaining Israeli sovereignty over majority-Jewish areas such as the French Hill – Pisgat Zeev – Neve Yaakov bloc of neighborhoods in the northern part of the city.
Recently, Netanyahu expressed support for Israeli sovereignty not only in majority-Jewish parts of the capital, but in all of Jerusalem, when he rejected an American demand to cease construction of a Jewish-owned structure in the majority-Muslim neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Netanyahu reportedly said at the time, “What is [Obama] thinking? After I built 20,000 housing units in Har Homa despite all the pressure, I’ll freeze construction of 20 housing units?”
Shas to quit the government, the moment negotiations on Jerusalem begin.
A rally was held this evening protesting the arrival of the US envoys in Israel. Members of National Union, Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu led the crowd, which included Kahanists wearing t-shirts saying “Kahane was right,” referring to Meir Kahane’s ideology of violence against all who stand in the way of the constant expansion of Jewish territory.
The general atmosphere of the rally was that Obama is a Muslim and a racist who denies the Jewish people their right to control the Land of Israel.
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A nice summary of permanent political crisis in the Natanyahu led cabinet …
… like the Bibi of old, while his remarks to the cabinet that “There is no ban on Arabs buying apartments in the west of the city, and there is no ban on Jews building or buying in the city’s east” might make a convincing a soundbite for his constituency, they are not 100 percent accurate.
The FACT is that while American Jews like Irving Moskowitz can buy land in East Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods, a Palestinian resident of, say, Sheikh Jarrah cannot purchase an apartment in many parts of west Jerusalem, because the Israel Lands Administration, which owns the land, will only enter into a contract with Israeli citizens of persons entitled to citizenship under the Law of Return.
Waiting for Obama
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
July 27 (Bloomberg) — Renco Group Inc. founder Ira Rennert and bingo entrepreneur Irving Moskowitz are among U.S. donors who have given $25.4 million in five years to build Jewish homes in Arab parts of Jerusalem.
The American contributions, detailed in Internal Revenue Service records, have gone to organizations such as Ateret Cohanim. The group says it bought at least 45 properties, most in Jerusalem’s Muslim Quarter, to advance its goal of settling a Jewish majority in the now predominantly Arab Old City.
The donations have also helped fund plans to build Jewish homes on the Shepherd Hotel site in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. The U.S. State Department two weeks ago asked Israel to halt the project, which has been condemned as a threat to Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects by the French government, the European Union and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Profile Irving Moskowitz
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
There is hardly any surprise for peace negotiations between partners on the P/I issue. We have been there before with Clinton, now minus Arafat.
… the Americans hope to reach understandings about the settlements, which would enable talks to resume.
PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas is refusing to resume talks before Israel halts construction in the settlements. However, once Washington reaches understandings with Israel to suspend construction, Abbas would not be able to maintain his refusal, the Palestinian officials said.
The debating continued at Fatah’s sixth convention.
Poll: More Israelis would prefer Livni as prime minister
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
(Haaretz) – When he was president Clinton’s adviser, Emanuel orchestrated the handshaking ceremony between Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat. It is even said that after Rabin’s assassination, it was he who suggested to Clinton that he include the expression “Shalom, haver” (Goodbye, friend) in his eulogy to Rabin. But in spite of the disappointments of the intifada and his criticism of the Palestinians and the Arab states, which he called on to impose “pressure” on the Palestinians – he has not forgotten the September 13, 1993, ceremony at the White House, which moved him profoundly.
In December 2005, when Congress commemorated the 10th anniversary of Rabin’s murder, Emanuel delivered a speech in his memory. “As a member of the Clinton administration, I had the pleasure of witnessing the signing of these historical accords on the White House lawn. Meeting prime minister Rabin was an honor I will never forget, and his example continues to inspire me to this day.”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."