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Jefferson23

(30,099 posts)
Wed Feb 20, 2013, 11:15 PM Feb 2013

When a Palestinian home isn't really a home

Israel’s Defense Ministry claims that eight West Bank villages, populated by over 1,000 Palestinian residents and continually inhabited since well before 1967, don’t actually constitute ‘home’ – and has served them with eviction orders.

By Tamar Feldman | Feb.20, 2013


I recently bought my first apartment, and cluttered as it is with stacks of books and boxes of my belongings, it is not home to some of my most important possessions. The artifacts of my childhood – photographs, toys, report cards, my first pair of shoes – all these remain in the house I grew up in, my parents' house, where I know I can always let myself in, spend as much time as I want, and feel at home. But could the fact that my parent's house will always feel like home mean that my own apartment isn't my home?

I am hardly alone in my musings. The question of what makes a home has captivated the imaginations of artists, philosophers and social scientists throughout history. But recently the concept has taken on more concrete connotations in the context of a legal case I am working on, representing several communities of shepherds and farmers living in small historic villages in an area of the southern West Bank called Masafer Yatta.

The villagers live in ancient caves dug by their forefathers, and in tents pitched close to their flocks' grazing grounds. The villages are scattered in the area, secluded from one another and lacking infrastructure. There are no paved roads leading to the villages, no electricity and no running water. The residents are therefore completely dependent upon the nearby town of Yatta for basic services. When a family member gets sick or is about to give birth, they go to the extended family's house in town. When a teenager goes to school or finds work in Yatta, he might stay there throughout the week and come back home on weekends.

Could the existence of a family house in the town of Yatta undermine the fact that the villages constitute these families' homes? Of course it can't. Yet the Israeli Ministry of Defense is relying on precisely this absurd assertion to justify the forcible eviction of a thousand people from their homes in an area the IDF has declared a military training area.

in full: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/when-a-palestinian-home-isn-t-really-a-home.premium-1.504726

8 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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When a Palestinian home isn't really a home (Original Post) Jefferson23 Feb 2013 OP
An IDF declaration of a military training area is synonymous R. Daneel Olivaw Feb 2013 #1
Oooh, collaborationists too. Pathetic. n/t Jefferson23 Feb 2013 #2
Right-wing groups use 'right of return' to evict Arabs from East Jerusalem azurnoir Feb 2013 #3
Relentless: Jefferson23 Feb 2013 #4
I understand what RoR was meant to do and why especially at the time it was adopted azurnoir Feb 2013 #5
To say the least, yes. n/t Jefferson23 Feb 2013 #6
So little time, so many perverted ways to force the Palestinians out. R. Daneel Olivaw Feb 2013 #7
That's a discriminatory and bigoted law... Violet_Crumble Feb 2013 #8
 

R. Daneel Olivaw

(12,606 posts)
1. An IDF declaration of a military training area is synonymous
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 12:33 AM
Feb 2013

with settlement construction. Kick the rightful owners out and move the illegals in.


I love this post in the comments section.

This land is called West bank only by Arab usurpers and their collaborationists. Jews call it Judea.


Since FR is down the crazies have to post someplace.

azurnoir

(45,850 posts)
3. Right-wing groups use 'right of return' to evict Arabs from East Jerusalem
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 04:59 PM
Feb 2013

Right-wing groups use 'right of return' to evict Arabs from East Jerusalem

In December 2012, a Jerusalem court ruled to evict a Palestinian family from its Sheikh Jarrah home, where it had been living for decades, on March 1. The eviction suit, filed by the Justice Ministry's Custodian General, was engineered entirely by far-right activists.

The Shamasna family of Sheikh Jarrah is one of several Palestinian families to have been evicted in recent years using a similar method.

The law enables Jews, but not Palestinians, to reclaim property they left behind enemy lines in 1948. A number of rightist NGOs have been acting vigorously in recent years to track down the Jewish heirs of properties in East Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhoods and assist them in "releasing" the property, held in trust by the Custodian General. They then buy the property from the heirs or rent it to Jewish settlers.

The Shamasna family home, like many others in the predominantly Palestinian neighborhood, was built on land that belonged to Jewish families who had fled to west Jerusalem during the War of Independence. This method has raised much protest from both Palestinians and Jerusalem peace activists.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israeli-right-wing-groups-use-right-of-return-to-evict-arabs-from-east-jerusalem.premium-1.501013

Jefferson23

(30,099 posts)
4. Relentless:
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 06:38 PM
Feb 2013

The Shamasna family - father Ayoob, 79, mother Fahima, their son, his wife and their six children - live in a tiny, shabby house that once belonged to Haim Ben Sulimani.

Sulimani's granddaughter, Ashira Bibi, filed the claim to evict the Shamasna family with the help of rightist activist Aryeh King, who was number four on Otzma Leyisrael's ticket. Bibi was represented in the court hearing by attorney Avi Segal, from Yitzhak Mina's law firm, which often represents rightist NGOs against Palestinians.

Before filing the claim, Bibi and King asked the Custodian General to register the house in the heirs' name. The process was almost completed in 2008. But then, says the Shamasnas' attorney, Mohand Jabara, the plaintiffs decided to halt the process in order to be able to ask the court to evict the Palestinian family in the State of Israel's name rather than their own.

Jabara suspects this move was intended to impress the Jerusalem District Court. "They had all the documents to take over the property but they wanted to keep it in the state's name," Jabara says.

"It makes a bigger impression when you ask the court in the state's name to evict Palestinians," he says.

azurnoir

(45,850 posts)
5. I understand what RoR was meant to do and why especially at the time it was adopted
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 07:03 PM
Feb 2013

was important but IMO to use it in this manner is a perversion of that intent

Violet_Crumble

(35,954 posts)
8. That's a discriminatory and bigoted law...
Fri Feb 22, 2013, 04:10 AM
Feb 2013

Laws relating to property should never be used so they exclude people based on their race, ethnicity or religion.

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