Evictions and Settlement Plans in Sheikh Jarrah: The Case of Shimon HaTzadik Summary On May 17, two Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem received court orders to vacate their homes by July 19, 2009. At that point, the houses will be turned over to the landlord: settler organization Nahalat Shimon International, which seeks to demolish the existing Palestinian neighborhood and build a 200-unit settlement in its place. 1 In recent months, the actual and pending evictions of several Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah have sparked international controversy. Israeli authorities claim that Palestinian residents have lost their rights as protected tenants due to delinquency in rent payments, while Palestinians maintain that Israeli ownership claims are baseless. Currently, settlers inhabit 5-6 buildings in the area, and active court cases threaten 4 Palestinian extended families. This memo aims to clarify the issues in Sheikh Jarrah, and to place the controversy in the context of an ongoing set of development plans that threaten to spark a dangerous escalation of the conflict in the city and to preclude an agreed-upon political resolution in Jerusalem. Complementing settler organization Nahalat Shimon International's legal battle against Palestinian residents is that same group's plan to demolish the existing residential structures and evict hundreds of Palestinian residents in order to clear the way for a new Israeli settlement: Shimon HaTzadik. This settlement constitutes one of a series of plans that seek to penetrate and surround Sheikh Jarrah with Israeli settlements, yeshivas and other Jewish institutions, as well as national park land, and complement government efforts to ring the Old City with Jewish development and effectively cut it off from Palestinian areas. 2 The struggle for the area highlights an additional issue: the ongoing attempt of Israeli settlers, backed by the Israel Lands Administration (ILA), to "reclaim" plots of land in East Jerusalem that were owned by Jews under British or Ottoman rule. These efforts continue throughout East Jerusalem, despite Israeli courts' ongoing refusal to recognize similar claims by Palestinian owners in West Jerusalem. המלך ג' ורג ' 27 ד.ת . 2239 ירושלים 94581 27 King George St. P.O. Box 2239 Sheikh Jarrah in Context Jerusalem 94581 On August 28, 2008, Nahalat Shimon International, a settler-related real estate company, filed Town Plan Scheme (TPS) 12705 in the Jerusalem טל .Tel +972-2-6222858 פקס .Fax 1 Civil Court case 4744/02, TPS 12705. +972-2-6233696 2 See: "Parks Fortify Israel's Claim to Jerusalem," The New York Times, May 10, 2009. www.ir-amim.org.il [email protected] Local Planning Commission. If TPS 12705 comes to pass, the existing Palestinian houses in this key area would be demolished, about 500 Palestinians would be evicted, and 200 new settler units would be built for a new settlement: Shimon HaTzadik. Such a plan would advance the creation of Israeli and Jewish strongholds in the historic basin surrounding the Old City. In Sheikh Jarrah to the north, the Mount of Olives to the east and Silwan to the south, development plans aim to ring the Old City with Jewish settlements and public projects, cutting off Palestinian territorial contiguity with the Old City. These developments unilaterally create an integral population link between the Old city and West Jerusalem, strengthen Israeli control of this sensitive area, and thwart the feasibility of future agreed-upon borders for Jerusalem in the context of a two- state resolution. In recent years, settler organizations have made great strides in the Sheikh Jarrah area, acting with varying degrees of public funding and support. Recently completed projects in the area include the Beit Orot Yeshiva with a number of student and teacher housing units and the adjacent Ein Tzurim National Park. Elad, the settler organization known for its archeological and settlement activity in the City of David/Silwan is involved in running the park. As seen on the attached map, in addition to the Shimon HaTzadik plan (TPS 12705), three additional Israeli development plans are being advanced in the Sheikh Jarrah vicinity: 1. Shepherd Hotel .3 Approved in 1984, Town Planning Scheme (TPS) 2591 permits the construction of 20 housing units on the land of the formerly Palestinian-owned Shepherd Hotel property. The current application for a building permit to carry out this plan is currently under review for historical preservation at the municipal planning committee. 4 An additional Town Plan Scheme (TPS 11536) is now being advanced -- to expand on the 1984 plan by building 90 housing units, a synagogue, a kindergarten, and dormitories. This plan is in its early stages in the statutory approval process. 2. Kerem HaMufti . 40-dunam olive grove claimed by Palestinian owners. In 2007, the ILA was discovered to be leasing it to the Ateret Cohanim settlers' organization. The case is currently in court. 3. The Glassman Campus . On an adjacent Jewish-owned plot, a conference center is planned, called the Glassman Campus. Initial inquiry reveals that the Glassmans, Canadian philanthropists, are involved with the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, the Los Angeles-based organization building the Museum of Tolerance on and around the site of a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem. 4. Map: Sheikh Jarrah Area and Settlement Schemes 3 In 1985, the historic Shepherd Hotel, formerly under Palestinian ownership, was acquired from the Custodian for Absentee Property by Irving Moskowitz. It is now administered by Moskowitz, Ateret Cohanim and C&M Properties 4 Construction permit 08-787 2 Historical Background 3 Sheikh Jarrah is a Palestinian neighborhood to the north of the Old City of Jerusalem. In the western portion of Sheikh Jarrah, close to the 1949 Armistice Line or Green Line, lies an 18-dunam (4.5-acre) area known as Shimon HaTzadik (Simon the Just), after the Second Temple high priest believed to be buried there. This area has become a focal point of settler development plans in the city. Under contention are approximately 28 residential structures, currently housing descendants of 27 of the Palestinian families who arrived in 1956 (about 500 people) and 5-6 settler groups (about 30 people). 5 Since 1972, Israeli settlers have been working to establish Jewish land claims and a Jewish presence in the area, and Palestinian residents have faced legal challenges regarding land ownership and residency rights. (See attached appendix for full legal history.) These legal battles have focused on three intertwined issues: • Legal recognition of land and building ownership • Tenancy rights of the Palestinian residents • Differential enforcement of the law regarding settlers and Palestinians, living in the structures without legal recognition. There are currently four relevant legal cases in regard to this area: 1. Sephardic Community Committee vs. Sabbagh (7 family members). This Civil Court case charges the defendants with rent delinquency and seeks their eviction. 6 2. Mohammed Kamel Al-Kurd vs. Avi Dicther, Minister of Public Security, and Nitzav Ilan Franco, District Police Chief; In this Supreme Court case, the Al-Kurd family charges the Israeli police with differential law enforcement regarding the settlers in their home. It will be heard in November 2009. 7 3. Sephardic Community Committee and Nahalat Shimon International v. Abed Al-Fatah Ghawi and Maher Khalil Hanun. In this Civil Court case, the plaintiffs seek to evict the Ghawi and Hanun families from their homes, on the grounds of rent delinquency. The families are also tried for contempt of court. This case was heard May 17, 2009. 8 4. Suleiman Darwish Hijazi vs. Sephardic Community Committee, the Knesset Israel Committee, Nahalat Shimon, International, and the Jerusalem Lands Settlement Officer. In this Magistrate Court appeal, Hijazi challenges the grounds upon which the 1982 case was decided and seeks to prove his ownership of the disputed land. 9 Pre-1967 5 28 houses were built for the original Palestinian residents of the neighborhood in 1956. Since then, some units have been joined and others subdivided and expanded. 6 Civil Court Case 19795/08. 7 Supreme Court Case 4906/07. 8 Civil Court Case 4744/02. 9 Magistrate Court Case 3148/09. 4 A small Jewish community established in the late 19th century around the site of the tomb, was gradually abandoned starting from the period of the Arab disturbances of the 1920s and '30s through the 1948 War of Independence. In the period of Jordanian rule from 1948 to 1967, the Jordanian government took control of these plots under the Enemy Property Law. In 1956, 28 Palestinian families who had been receiving refugee aid and assistance from UNRWA were selected to benefit from a relief project in conjunction with the Jordanian Ministry of Development. According to the agreement, the families would forfeit their baskets of refugee assistance and would pay token rent for three years until the ownership of the houses would transfer to their names. The houses, according to the agreement, would be built on “formerly Jewish property leased by the Custodian of Enemy Property to the Ministry of Development, for the purpose of this project.” 10 Three years passed and ownership was not formally transferred to the families. 1972 – 2001 In 1972, 27 families (one family had left of its own accord) received notice that rent was due to the Sephardic Community Committee and the Knesset Israel Committee—landlords they had not known they had. That year, the Committees initiated a process with the Israel Lands Administration (ILA) to register the lands in their names, based on 19 th -century, Ottoman-era documents. Ten years later, in 1982, the two committees brought a legal case against 23 families for rent delinquency. Itzhak Toussia-Cohen, the lawyer representing the Palestinians families, did not contest the legitimacy of the Committees’ ownership claims, and instead arrived at a court-sanctioned agreement—a binding agreement that can be appealed only if proven to be based on false grounds—that secured “protected tenancy” status for residents.