Israel Matzav

Jeremy Ben Ami's Jerusalem home is in 'ethnically cleansed' Baka

For those who don't read Hebrew, or are not familiar with the form above, the form is a standard summary from the Israeli Companies Registrar listing the names and addresses of the shareholders of an Israeli company. You can get a form like this for any Israeli company online through the Companies Registrar.

This particular form is for Ben-Or Communications Ltd., a public relations company which has two classes of shares (Hat Tip: Lenny B). There are 200 'management shares' (which are usually the shares that control the company's management), outstanding, which are owned by Oriella Ben Zvi of Herzliya. There are 200 ordinary shares (like common stock in the US) outstanding, 170 of which are owned by Ben Zvi, and the other 30 of which are owned by Jeremy Ben Ami, the chairman of J Street. Ben-Or Communications acts as J Street's public relations firm in Israel.

Ben Zvi's address is given as being in Herzliya, and she gives an Israeli identification number. Ben Ami has an Israeli identification number which indicates that he is not an Israeli citizen (900000000), but curiously gives a Jerusalem address.

What's even more curious is that Ben Ami's Jerusalem address is on Mordechai HaYehudi Street, which is located in Baka, a neighborhood that was populated by Arabs before the War of Independence.

Baka was established in the late 19th century after the completion of the Jerusalem Railway Station. The station created the nucleus of a commercial center that eventually attracted wealthy Arab, Christian and Armenian families from the Old City who built mansions there in the 1920s. ^[3] The neighborhood had an agricultural character until the 1950s.

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the neighborhood was left on the Israeli (western) side of the dividing line between West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem. Its population changed, as with many neighborhoods on both sides of the dividing line.

I'd be curious to hear why Ben Ami thinks it's okay to live in a house that was confiscated from Arabs (who probably fled) after the War of Independence, but not okay to live in a house that was built on empty, ownerless land in Judea and Samaria (or on land in Judea and Samaria that was owned by Jews before 1948 and was ethnically cleansed by the illegal Jordanian occupation from 1948-67).

Hmmm.

Labels: J Street, Jeremy Ben Ami, Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, War of Independence

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:11 PM