Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Israeli Court Orders Jerusalem Family to Share Home with Settlers

In the last month Palestinians in Jerusalem continued to face ongoing violence and settler takeovers of their homes. As Israeli forces abducted and arrested children in the Silwan area, an order by the municipal court could force a family to "share" a room in their home with settlers. Meanwhile, a United Nations expert called Israeli policies in East Jerusalem consistent with characteristics of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

In Ras al-Amoud, an Israeli court recently ruled that a Palestinian family will have to move out of one room in their home as Israeli settlers and an armed Israeli guard could move in in a matter of weeks.

After 11 years of legal battles, the Hamdallah family was ordered to move their furniture and belongings out of one of their bedrooms and their front yard. Their home is next to settler houses in the illegal settlement colony of Maaleh Zeitim.

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that American billionaire and settler financier Irving Moskowitz waged the long battle against the Hamdallahs in court, claiming that he "acquired" the land from an ultra-Orthodox Jewish organization. The Hamdallah family has lived in the home since 1952; however the Jerusalem district court ruled in 2005 that they had to "evacuate parts of the home built after 1989" ("Palestinian family ordered to share East Jerusalem home with Israelis," 10 March 2011).

Haaretz added that Moskowitz's lawyer "convinced the bailiff's office that this includes one bedroom and the front yard."

Read the rest of this incredible story here.

P.S. This story is incredible for people of normal human values and sensibilities but it is not out of the ordinary for the supremacists behind it.

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