French leave
For 50 years, Sheikh Jarrah (French Hill in Hebrew) in Jerusalem has been home to fivePalestinian families.
Now, the Hebrew University is moving to evict them.
Amira Hass reports:
Um Youssef weeping, and a CPT member is hugging her in support
On April 23, Mohand Jabarra, a lawyer, personally delivered a letter to each of the fivePalestinian families who have lived in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood for the past50 years.
The letters were sent by Asher Rogel & Co. the law firm that represents the Hebrew University ofJerusalem. A spectacular garden and colorful trees surround the seven houses where thefamilies live.
Only three dunams (0.75 acres) now, the land plot represents the last remnant of the estate thefamilies owned until 30 years ago.
On January 11, 1968, following a government decision, all the land belonging to the Halaf,Hamdan and Siam families, as well as the two Akal families, was expropriated.
Every structure on the property would be demolished. The land on which the families lived andraised children, the land they cultivated, had been allocated to the Hebrew University, tobuild student dormitories.
The families refused to vacate the premises, or to negotiate alternative housingarrangements. In the meantime, the Hebrew University began to build around the houses, andaround the families who had been crowded into the remaining space.
The French Hill neighborhood expanded as well. Wide roads were built on expropriated land.Students moved in and out of the dorms.
The huge Hyatt hotel was built. Meanwhile, the Palestinian families were confined to thehouses, which they were strictly forbidden to enlarge.
From 1968 to 1973, the Hebrew University, the Israel Land Administration and governmentlawyers tried Various tactics to force the families to leave.
A 1972 letter, sent to the Akal family by a lawyer in the Israel Land Administration, reads, “Inlight of the expropriation notice as per clauses 5 and 7 of the Land Ordinance of 1943(requisition on behalf of public need) …
Zuhur Al-Atrash with dresser saved from house before it was demolished
you and your family are required to vacate the house and land plot which you occupy within 15days of the date shown on this letter. You must also transfer the capacity to hold the house andland to the State of Israel within the aforementioned period. You must leave the house clear ofall objects and occupants. Should you fail to comply within the said period, we will be underthe obligation to begin legal proceedings.
As regards to compensation, you are entitled to present your claim as per the aforementionedordinance, insofar as you can establish proof of your rights.”
Eventually, the state did turn to the District Court, which ruled that the families had tovacate the property and receive suitable alternative housing. They refused. Perhaps theyhad learned their lesson in 1948.
They are all refugees from the village of Liftah, west of Jerusalem. Fifty years ago, under thediligent lashing of the Hagana, the Lehi and the National Military Organization, they fledtheir homes in Liftah and headed eastward to Mount Scopus.
Unlike other refugees, who lost everything, they were lucky enough to own other lands inSheikh Jarrah. The pain of being exiled was somewhat alleviated by the families’ ability tocontinue living honorably from agricultural and manual labor. The Halaf family learnedlater that Israel’s parliament had been built on land that belonged to them.
Other government buildings were erected on land owned by the wealthy Akal family, which alsolost orchards they owned in the area of Sarafend and a house in Deir Yassin (today Givat Shaul).
For nearly 25 years, the government left the five families alone. They assumed this wouldlast. “We thought the Hebrew University decided it was important for the students toexperience coexistence with Arabs,” one of the family members recalled bitterly last week.
In the late 1960s, expropriations were based on the understanding that people could not beevicted from their homes unless there was a clear public need, like a road.
Back then, it would not have been deemed acceptable to evict people from their home just for thesake of building other housing units.
Why, then, is the Hebrew University suddenly determined to expel the five families who havebeen living there for 50 years?
Ossana Halabi, a lawyer who represents the families, thinks the move is linked to the imminentexpiration of the legal 25-year period of validity set in the eviction court ruling. But theletter of the university’s attorneys, Asher Rogel and Oded Bleustein, states anotherreason:
“The university has been authorized to expand. Therefore, my client requires that theexpropriated land be vacated.
” The university, they stress, “is interested in reaching a settlement based on consent whichwill allow you to vacate the premises in exchange for alternative housing arrangementsand/or payment of compensation.
” The families are asked to allow “an immediate review of the property existing on thepremises, so as to assess the possibility of arranging for another place of residence…”
The authors of the letter express their regret that the families chose to ignore recentattempts to consult them on ways of reaching a solution.
They warn that if the families refuse to allow experts to assess their property and offeralternative housing within seven days, the only remaining option will be to enforce theeviction through a court order.
Image: pics/14.jpg “We are staying here,” said Aisha Akal, 60. “We didn’t choose to come hereduring the war. They kicked us out of Liftah. We were here before them, before the hill andbefore the French.
And then they started to build more and more, here and there, under us and above us.
You call this a government? A government should take care of people, not evict them.”
Her son Nasser can not understand why the university insists on building an expansion to thedormitory complex and a parking lot in that precise location.
“Is a parking lot more important than people?” he asks. “There is a vacant plot near the Hyatthotel, a three-minute walk from here.
It was expropriated in 1968. Why won’t they build the dorms there? Why ruin some people’s livesjust so they can replace them with other people?”
The families have turned to MK Azmi Bishara (Hadash-Bilad), who immediately wrote to thetrustees of the Hebrew University, and sent an urgent appeal to embassies and universitiesaround the world.
“We are morally outraged by the fact that, as an institution which believes in ideals ofequality, justice and learning, the Hebrew University has chosen to evict refugees fromtheir homes, only to turn them into refugees for the second time,” the letter says.
Last week, the family held a protest in front of the Hyatt hotel, along with Arab students,Jewish human rights activists and Palestinian officials, including Faisal al Husseini, thePalestinian Authority’s point man in Jerusalem.
To every demonstrator, Aisha Akal showed the garden, the house where she and her children wereraised and the trees she planted. “What?” she cried out in anger and pain. “We have been growingthese trees for 50 years, and now the bulldozers will come and destroy our lives?.