Israel Matzav

Hebron's 'triangle marketplace' to be made Judenrein

Both Arutz Sheva and - l'havdil (differentiate so as not to mention them in the same breath) - Haaretz report this morning that four more Jewish families and a Yeshiva located in the triangle marketplace in Hebron have been given eviction expulsion orders. The orders will be appealed. They were issued in response to a court petition filed by Peace Piece by Piece Now. (For those who wonder how Piece by Piece Now could have the standing to file a court petition, I explained that here).

The triangle marketplace is located near wholesale market from which two Jewish families were expelled earlier this week, and was also built on land seized from Jews who fled Hebron after 67 Jews were murdered by their Arab neighbors on 18 Av 5689 (1929 in the Gregorian calendar - 78 years ago last Thursday on the Jewish calendar).

“Two years ago, the IDF, guided by the military prosecutor and state prosecutor, drafted a defense plan for Hevron’s Jewish community, whose aim was to reduce to a minimum the number of closed Palestinian stores in the area of the Jewish community while minimizing the danger to the Jews’ security. The plan was approved by all the professional and political echelons and was presented to the Supreme Court. The stores that Peace Now is now seeking our eviction from, are part of the tiny number of stores that will never be opened – in which six Jewish families now live.”

The Jewish Community of Hevron has appealed the expulsion orders, and a hearing on the matter will be heard in two weeks. Until then, the order is on hold.

Haaretz provides some historical background:

The stores in question are on Jewish-owned land that was inhabited by Jews until 1929, when Arabs massacred many members of the local community and the survivors fled.

But the settlers argue that aside from being on Jewish-owned land, the stores are an integral part of the Jewish Avraham Avinu neighborhood: They share common walls with the houses on the edge of the neighborhood, and the neighborhood's access road passes between them.

Between 1948 and 1967, when Jordan controlled Hebron, the stores were managed by the kingdom's custodian of enemy property. After Israel captured the territories in 1967, it upheld the leases that Palestinian shopkeepers had signed with the Jordanian body and gave them the status of protected tenants.

In 1994, following both Baruch Goldstein's massacre of Muslim worshipers at the Cave of the Patriarchs and a stabbing in the area, the IDF closed both the wholesale and triangle markets and forbade Palestinian merchants to enter. Some time later, after the squatters moved in, two of the merchants who had rented the stores asked Peace Now to approach the Civil Administration for an eviction order on their behalf.

The Civil Administration granted the order, ruling that the army's closure of the market did not cancel the tenants' rights to the stores, and that the Jewish squatters had no rights to the property. "This was a deliberate, planned and illegal act that challenged the rule of law in the city of Hebron," it wrote in its submission to the appeals committee.

Orit Struk, one of the leaders of Hebron's Jewish community, said the army prepared a defensive plan for the Hebron settlers "whose goal was to reduce to a minimum the number of [closed] Palestinian stores in the vicinity of the Jewish community," and this plan was approved by the military prosecution, the state prosecution and "every professional and political echelon."

Look for another part of Hebron to be made Judenrein unless for some reason the government gets too busy with something else.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:42 AM