The New York Times brushes off attempted murder
The New York Times does a story on the
arrest of Ezra Nawi for
turning a 'Palestinian' land seller over to the tender mercies of the '
Palestinian security forces' and manages to turn it into an indictment of
free speech in Israel.
Ezra Nawi, an Israeli Jewish plumber, has a long history as a left-wing activist helping Palestinians in their struggle against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. Now he is under arrest in Israel, after a right-wing activist surreptitiously filmed him bragging about exposing Arab brokers who tried to sell Palestinian land to Jewish settlers. Such sales are a capital crime under Palestinian law.
Considered
variously as a big-mouthed provocateur and a colorful human-rights
adventurer, Mr. Nawi has become the latest symbol in the battle between
advocacy groups on opposite sides of Israel’s political spectrum, and
the increasingly fierce debate here over the nature of Israeli society
and democracy.
The debate has heated up as Israel’s conservative government is pushing
forward contentious legislation that would require nongovernmental
organizations to disclose funding they receive from foreign governments
in their publications, advertising and meetings with public officials.
The proposed bill, which supporters say is meant to increase
transparency, would apply mainly to leftist groups critical of Israel’s
policy toward the Palestinians, since rightist groups mostly receive
private funding from abroad, and it has already drawn harsh criticism
from the Obama administration and European diplomats.
No, this story is not about the NGO law, which the Times so hates. It's about yet another Leftist fascist who thinks he has the right to endanger other people's lives.
It
is an odd case. Mr. Nawi, described in a 2009 New York Times profile as
“the Robin Hood of the South Hebron Hills,” helping Palestinians who
love him and “thwarting settlers and soldiers who view him with
contempt,” is now accused of endangering the lives of Palestinians. That
is because selling land to Israeli Jews is punishable by death
according to the Palestinian Authority. Although the authority is not
known to have carried out any executions for any offense in more than a
decade, there have been reports of torture in its prisons.
The
Ad Kan video, from about a year ago, shows Mr. Nawi behind the wheel of
his jeep, bragging about what appeared to be a dubious sideline to his
activist work in the West Bank.
He told the man sitting next to him, whom he believed to be a fellow
sympathizer, that he sometimes posed as a land broker and engaged with
other land dealers mediating sales of Palestinian-owned land to Jewish
settlers, then handed over their details to the Palestinian Authority
security services.
Asked what the Authority did with such people, Mr. Nawi said it “catches them and kills them.”
Days later, he was arrested at the airport as he was about to leave the country.
Odd? Not to anyone who knows the history of Israel's prosecutorial regime burying charges against the Left. Only by gathering evidence so convincing that even the Left-leaning Uvda had to run with it or lose all credibility could Nawi's disgusting behavior be exposed.
There is a story here. Too bad it's not the one the Times chose to tell.
Labels: anti-Israel media bias, Arab land sales to Jews, B'Tselem, Ezra Nawi, human rights, human rights activists, human rights NGO's, Israeli Knesset, New York Times, NGO funding, Ta'ayush, traitor
Jewish Voice for 'peace' seeks to free accessory to murder
Israel Radio reported this morning that a Jew and a 'Palestinian' - both 'peace activists' - are being held for meeting with an enemy foreign agent.
While the radio did not disclose who they are, the uber-Leftist Jew-haters at Jewish Voice for 'peace' are
petitioning for his release (if you think my description of JVP is an overstatement, go
here).
If you're wondering why this Jewish-born drek is being held, go
here.
Labels: ADL, Arab land sales to Jews, B'Tselem, Ezra Nawi, human rights, human rights activists, human rights NGO's, Israeli Knesset, Jewish Voice for Peace, NGO funding, Ta'ayush, traitor
Video with English translation of Ezra Nawi saying he turns 'Palestinian' land sellers over for torture and death
Thursday night's video showing Leftist 'human rights' activists Ezra Nawi and Nasser Najawa ran 44 minutes long. Now, StandWithUs has translated two of the key minutes into English (subtitles).
Let's go to the videotape.
By the way, I hope the gentleman referred to in the video as 'Arik' (the one who did the recording) is well-hidden. Nawi undoubtedly knows who he is and surely wants to have him killed.
Labels: Arab land sales to Jews, B'Tselem, human rights, human rights activists, human rights NGO's, Israeli Knesset, NGO funding, Ta'ayush
The Israeli Hard Left circles the wagons
Israel's Left is circling the wagons around two of its own. Ta'ayush's Ezra Nawi (pictured) and B'Tselem's Nasser Nawaja were shown on Israeli television on Thursday night telling a Right wing activist with a hidden camera that they turn over 'Palestinians' who wish to sell land to Jews to the '
Palestinian security forces' for torture and death.
Although the story has gotten little exposure outside of Israel, here it's all the rage. Over the weekend, Israel's hard left has been circling the wagons to
defend Nawi and Nawaja.
Both Nawi and Nawaja are among the most internationally renowned
members of Israel’s radical left. Earlier this year, Nawaja published an
anti-Israeli op-ed in The New York Times,
accusing the Jewish state of “dispossession and oppression.” Nawi is
considerably more prominent: when he was arrested, in 2007, for
attacking Israeli policemen during a West Bank demonstration, more than
20,000 people—including a long list of prominent Israeli academics as
well as progressive American celebrities like Noam Chomsky and Naomi
Klein—signed a petition demanding his release.
Responding to the piece with a statement on its Facebook page,
B’Tselem said that while it opposed tortures and executions, reporting
Palestinians interested in selling land to Israelis to the PA was “the
only legitimate course of action.”
These revelations comes at an inopportune moment for the two NGOs, as
the Israeli government is considering measures to regulate non-profit
organizations receiving financial support from foreign governments. Ta’ayush,
according to the Jerusalem-based group NGO-Monitor, receives some
foreign donations but does not disclose its funding.
B’Tselem, on the
other hand, is considered one of Israel’s leading civil rights
organizations, and receives financial support from
the governments of Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands,
Norway, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, as well as the European
Union and the New Israel Fund.
And from
prominent American Jews....
Amazingly, B'Tselem, a favored grantee of the American non-profit organization The New Israel Fund, defended the action portrayed on today’s show, claiming that “This is the only legitimate channel for a Palestinian.”
Israel’s Education Minister Naftali Bennett accused the
New Israel Fund and the European Union of funding Israeli human rights
activists who turn in innocent Palestinians, and later urged foreign
ambassadors to Israel to stop transferring funds to these organizations.
(Both, B’Tselem and Ta’ayush receive funding from France and the United Kingdom, as well as from American Jews.)
Ta’ayush has in the past partnered with Rabbis for Human Rights
– of which Rabbi Gordon Tucker of Temple Israel of White Plains is a
donor - to bring “hundreds of volunteers to work side-by-side with
Palestinian farmers during Olive Harvest campaign.”
The pushback from the Left has been so fierce that even journalists like Maariv's
Ben Caspit and Haaretz's
Barak Ravid (both Leftists themselves) have criticized the Left wing organizations for not disavowing Nawi and Nawaja (links in Hebrew).
Of course, then there are the real Jew haters, like
Gideon Levy, who still has a platform at Haaretz.
In a report on left-wing groups which operate in the West Bank, Uvda aired secretly recorded footage
of Israeli activist Ezra Nawi saying that he had exposed Palestinian
land brokers who sold West Bank land to Jews, and turned them over to
the Palestinian Authority.The right wing and the settlers celebrated the
event of course. Another outpost has fallen into their hands. They have
already compared the left-wing activist Nawi to the Duma murderers, no
less. The rightists and settlers, known for their deep concern about the
lives of Palestinians, were shocked by Nawi’s statements. But the right
is not the story. The story is how a lethal virus has penetrated what
is almost the last outpost of real journalism.
How has a McCarthyist right-wing organization, whose motives are
clear (and despicable) and whose sources are unknown, succeeded with
such ease in enticing such respected journalists as Ilana Dayan and Omri
Assenheim? How has this flagship joined the ranks of the false
propaganda which masquerades as journalism?
That is how to conduct delegitimization. That is how it is done to
liberal organizations in the darkest of regimes, and now here too, and
on Uvda – no less.
Presenting the human rights organizations as dangerous groups, and
penetrating them, is compared to penetrating ISIS. The McCarthyists are
glorified, depicted as heroes of Israel who excelled in battles in Gaza.
All these are well-known ploys. And against this background, all that
is left is to record Nawi boasting, to catch him uttering the taboo
words, to present him as a “senior” activist, to ignore the entire
context — the crimes of the occupation and the expulsion form the
Southern Hebron Hills, which you never heard about on Uvda. Just ignore
the holy work done by left-wing activists in this battered region, spice
it with a few lies such as “execution” by the Palestinian Authority,
add a few generalizations, suspicions and slander – and the dish is
ready.
To those of you with even the slightest suspicion that Levy is onto something, I suggest that you go
watch the video of Thursday night's broadcast (it's in Hebrew only, but I summarized it
here). It doesn't get much more clear cut. Nawi and Najawa turned 'Palestinians' who wanted to sell land to Jews ('Palestinians' whose existence the Israeli Left denies) over to the 'Palestinian security services' for torture and murder. And they did it with a sadistic smile.
It doesn't get much more disgusting.
Labels: Arab land sales to Jews, B'Tselem, human rights, human rights activists, human rights NGO's, Israeli Knesset, New Israel Fund, NGO funding, Ta'ayush
'Human rights' organizations @taayush and @btselem turn 'Palestinian' land seller over to 'Palestinian security services' for torture
For those who can, I strongly recommend watching
the original report (44 minutes in Hebrew). Unfortunately, Blogger only allows the uploading of videos up to 100 megabytes - this one is nearly 180 megabytes.
Here's a brief summary:
Ilana Dayan's
Uvda (Fact) program on Israel's Channel 10 last night featured an expose on a group of Right wing activists from the center of the country who managed to place a mole in Taayush, a Jewish-Arab organization that advocates for 'Palestinian human rights.'
The mole, an alumnus of an elite IDF combat unit who won an award for bravery during the war in Gaza in the summer of 2014 (while this was going on!), managed to record Ezra Nawi, the Jewish leader of Taayush, in conversations with an Arab land owner who wished to sell land south of Hebron (near Jewish villages) to Jews.
Nawi met with the land seller (in the mole's presence), and then proceeded to conspire with a Btselem 'Palestinian' activist named Nasser Nawajeh to turn the land seller over for 'investigation' by the 'Palestinian security services.'
Yes, that's right, the European-financed 'human rights organizations' turned over (and apparently not for the first time) a 'Palestinian' who wished to sell land to Jews to the 'Palestinian security services' for torture (Nawi says it outright) and 'neutralization' (i.e. murder).
I'm hoping this video will be translated into English because it rips the mask off the 'human rights' activists and the self-hating Jews who are trying to destroy the Jewish state.
JNi.media has written a
more lengthy summary. Here is some of it:
The laws on ownership of land under the Palestinian Authority (PA),
originally enacted during the Jordanian occupation of Judea and Samaria
(1948–1967), prohibit Arabs from selling Arab-owned lands to “any man or
judicial body corporation of Israeli citizenship, living in Israel or
acting on its behalf.” According to several media sources, including the
NY Times, Ha’aretz and Jerusalem Post, selling land to Jews is
considered an act of treason by the Arabs because it threatens the
future Palestinian state and leads to “the spread of moral, political
and security corruption”. Arabs in the Palestinian Authority who sell
land to Israelis may be sentenced to death. The interrogation by PA
security forces of Arabs suspected of selling land to Jews involves
severe torture.
...
When asked what happens once Palestinian Authority police lays its
hands on the sellers, Nawi says, “It catches them, kills them.” He then
added with a vicious smile, “First Zubur, then Gazanga.” Zubur is an
Arabic word used in Hebrew to describe hazing—humiliation and physical
torment. The Gazanga part is not a known word, but implies, in the
context of the tape, the demise of the victim.
Ezra Nawi and his Arab associate, B’Tselem activist Nasser Nawaj’ah,
from the village of Yatta, are left-wing stars, who have been part of
the anti-settlement movement for decades. This is why the Israeli left,
before and immediately following the broadcast Thursday night, began a
campaign in their defense.
The left has praised Nawi and Nawaj’ah to high heaven over the years,
including accolades from linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist,
historian, logician, social critic, and political activist Noam Chomsky;
author, social activist, and filmmaker Naomi Klein; Ben-Gurion
University Prof. Niv Gordon; and Meretz Chairperson MK Zehava Galon.
They will not allow for these two folk hero activists to gain a new
renown as agents of death.
B’Tselem accused the show of legitimizing what was, essentially, a
right-wing operation. In that sense, the fact that journalist Dayan
described sending to their certain death Arabs whose only sin is wanting
to sell land to Jews, appears from B’Tselem’s point of view like her
embracing of the “occupation.” Gideon Levy told Dayan on air that “If
that’s all that those plants discovered, it’s a badge of honor for the
human rights organizations.”
...
Deputy Knesset Speaker MK Betzalel Smotrich said “what we’ve watched
tonight is the loss of a moral compass, a betrayal of the State of
Israel and an injury to life under the guise of defending human rights.
This phenomenon is not an invention of Ezra Nawi, unfortunately it is
typical of many of the extremist left wing organizations which are
concealing an extremist political agenda under the cover of human
rights.”
The report’s editor, Ami Assenheim, told Makor Rishon about the
process that preceded the screening: “Nawi is not alone,” he said. “You
see a mix of left-wing activists from other places. Nawi collaborates
with another Jewish activist in Ta’ayush. These are not the actions of a
single individual in a single organization. You see people conspiring
to turn in a land broker to the Preventive Security Force (PSF), knowing
what would be the fate of people like him. They were very embarrassed
when we called them up for a response. There were long silences and
phone hang-ups.”
Nawi himself accused the report of being an effort to sabotage his
heroic work on behalf of the Palestinian population in the southern
Hebron Mountain. “I wasn’t the one trapping the land broker, the
opposite is true,” he said. Nasser Nawaj’ah also denied his role as it
was described in the report, but not quite with the same level of
self-righteousness.
A couple of comments. The timing of this show's release is probably not accidental. As I have noted previously, the Knesset is currently considering a bill to expose foreign government funding of 'NGO's. This show could well advance that bill.
The comments by the Right wing infiltrators at the end were particularly notable. They said that they actually feel sorry for the ordinary 'Palestinians' who are being used not only by their own 'leadership,' but also by organizations that purport to protect their human rights. In other words, the Israeli Right is far more humane to 'Palestinians' than are the 'human rights' organizations.
Sadly, this story is unlikely to get a lot of publicity outside of Israel. But that shouldn't stop us from trying.
Labels: Arab land sales to Jews, B'Tselem, human rights, human rights activists, human rights NGO's, Israeli Knesset, NGO funding, Ta'ayush
'Palestinian' given death penalty for selling homes to Jews
A 'Palestinian' in the 'east' Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan has been murdered,
apparently for selling homes to Jews.
A 20-year-old man was stabbed to death in the Silwan neighborhood of Jerusalem, Israel Radio reported on Friday.
Israel
Police reported that the man was killed following an argument that
broke out between family members. It is not yet clear which family
members were involved
Neighbors who witnessed the fight told
police that the argument was over the hot-button issue of selling homes
to Jews in the predominantly Arab neighborhood.
...
Fadi Maragha, a local Fatah representative, said he felt that the broker who sold homes to Jews should die.
In the past, Palestinians found to have sold their homes to Jewish organizations have been killed.
In Silwan, there are 90 Jewish families with about 500 Jews, who live among 50,000 Arabs. No one has even discussed a similar penalty for Jews who sell apartments to Arabs in predominantly Jewish neighborhoods. Just sayin'....
Shabbat Shalom u'Moadim l'Simcha to all of you.
Labels: Arab land sales to Jews, East Jerusalem, murder, Silwan
'Palestinians' call for death penalty for broker of seven buildings sold to Jews in 'east' Jerusalem
One night in the summer of 1964, we came home and found a delegation of neighbors on the doorstep of our Natick, Massachusetts home. I was a little kid at the time, but I heard afterward what had happened. Our family was moving to Newton - another Boston suburb which is closer in - and my parents had sold our house to a black family. The neighbors were furious and wanted to buy the house to keep the neighborhood lily white. Yes, in Blue Massachusetts. My father z"l (of blessed memory) told them where to get off.
I think of that story every time I hear a story like this one.
Under police guard, Jewish families moved into seven buildings in the 'east' Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan - right outside the Old City - on Tuesday, as the former owners of the building and the broker who sold them fled, and a 'Palestinian Authority' official called for the
death penalty for the broker.
In the latest case, all of the homes were purchased legally by Elad via
intermediaries, usually Palestinian brokers who buy the properties from
local families at inflated prices.
At one house, Khaled Karaeen,
62 and a father of six, sat with his head in his hands in the courtyard
of his home, edgily flicking worry beads, unable to believe what had
happened.
Relatives said one of Karaeen's sons had sold a
dwelling inside the grounds of the family home to a Palestinian broker
about a year ago for 1.2 million shekels ($300,000), around twice as
much as the property was probably worth.
Karaeen refused to
speak to visitors on Tuesday, with family members saying he was too
ashamed by what his son had done. Karaeen's brother said he had spoken
by phone to the son, who had fled to the north of Israel.
In the past, Palestinians found to have sold their homes to settler organizations have been killed.
The
broker had then sold the apartment to Elad, which then rented it out to
the Jewish residents, who moved in during the early hours of Tuesday
morning with the help of Israeli police.
The Jewish family, which
declined to be interviewed, had barricaded themselves inside, blocking a
yellow door that opens onto Karaeen's courtyard. Karaeen sat three
meters (10 feet) away.
I was going to make a sarcastic remark about how giving the 'Palestinians' a 'state' would make them more willing to live among Jews. Alas, even that remark is out of place.
"They want to make a joke of us," said Fadi Maragha, a local
representative of the Palestinian political party Fatah, who said he had
come to offer support to the family.
"They think they can drive
us out. But we are the landowners. We were here and we will be here
until we have all of Palestine without any Jewish people in it," he
said.
Asked what would happen to the son and the broker to whom
he had sold the property, Maragha said he felt they should die, but he
did not expect that to happen.
"We know who the broker is. He's
living in a town south of Jerusalem," he said. "But he's rich and he's
protected, including by the Israelis."
Funny. I once owned a home in New Jersey and I sold it 23 years ago. Does that mean I'm not the landowner there anymore? Or would the 'Palestinians' still consider me the landowner? Hmmm.
Labels: Arab land sales to Jews, death penalty, death threats, East Jerusalem, Silwan
Jews allowed to move into contested building in Hebron
Defense Minister Moshe "Boogie" Yaalon has allowed Jews to
move into Hebron's Peace House, a building that was purchased on their behalf by an American Jew ten years ago. Israel's Far Left Meretz party is warning that the move will lead to violence, and its followers will do all they can to ensure that prediction comes true.
The move expands Jewish property-holding in the section of the city
under Israeli military and civil control. It is located in a
Palestinian neighborhood just outside the Kiryat Arba settlement, on the
major road that leads to the Cave of the Patriarchs.
Morris Abraham, a Jew from Brooklyn, had
purchased the building from its Palestinian owners over a decade ago.
Claiming ownership, settlers initially moved into Beit Hashalom in
March 2007 even though the Defense Ministry had not authorized the
purchase or given them the permits to live there.
The Palestinian owners argued that the sale, in any event was fraudulent and turned to the courts.
In December 2008, when Ehud Barak was defense minister, he
forcibly evacuated the building pending the completion of legal appeals. Some
600 Border Police officers and IDF soldiers participated in the
evacuation, in which four officers and 23 Jewish activists were lightly
to moderately injured. Additionally, at least 20 Palestinians were
injured in clashes with settlers in the area of the building.
In the weeks leading to the evacuation, extremist Jewish activists
vandalized the cemetery and the Palestinian homes next to Beit Hashalom.
In 2012, after
initial court victories by settlers, Barak took the
first steps toward authorization of their purchase of the structure. He
halted those efforts, however, after Palestinian appeals returned the
matter to the court.
In March, the High Court of Justice ruled that the purchase of the
four story apartment building was legal, but only on Sunday, did
Ya'alon grant Jewish families from Hebron permission to move in.
Already on Sunday afternoon hours after receiving permission, did the families begin to move their things in.
...
Meretz faction chairman Ilan Gilon said Ya'alon may be responsible for bloodshed as a result of his decision.
Gilon criticized the defense minister's decision on Beit Hashalom,
saying its "more spit in the public's face from the extreme right-wing
government, which decides during a crisis in talks with the Palestinians
to strengthen settlers in Hebron."
This is long past due.
Labels: Arab land sales to Jews, Ehud Barak, Hebron, Judea and Samaria, land purchases, Moshe Yaalon
Supreme Court 'suggests' invalidating absentee property law used to confiscate land in 'east' Jerusalem
The Supreme Court has 'suggested'
invalidating a 1950 law that allows the government to seize property in 'east' Jerusalem that has been abandoned by its former owners. The good news is that the court does not want to throw out the thousands of Israeli Jews who live on such properties, finally recognizing the reality that you can't expel people on that kind of scale.
The High Court of Justice issued a recommendation on Tuesday to the state, and
to lawyers fighting to undo state confiscations of east Jerusalem land, that the
court declare the use of a 1950 law to justify further confiscations
unconstitutional.
While some of the petitioners, such as top lawyer
Avigdor Feldman, were ready to embrace the recommendation as a long-delayed
righting of what they considered decades of injustice, other petitioners, like
NGO Adalah’s director Hassan Jabareen and lawyer Souhad Bishara, were dismayed,
viewing the suggestion as permanently anchoring in law nearly 50 years of unjust
confiscations.
...
The
court, presided over by Supreme Court President Asher D. Grunis, asked all of
the parties to provide legal opinions on its suggestion to declare the law’s
application in east Jerusalem unconstitutional, and to give their own ideas on
whether the declaration should take effect only now, or retroactively from a
different date.
Only two weeks ago, Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein had
announced a major policy reversal in which the government would stop using the
1950 Absentee Property Law to confiscate east Jerusalem properties from Arabs
for the benefit of Jews and the state.
The announcement had been designed
to avoid this exact eventuality of throwing out the law’s application entirely,
but may not have succeeded.
That state announcement followed a May High
Court decision demanding it explain its position in using the 1950 law to
confiscate land in east Jerusalem following the 1967 Six Day
War.
...
After the War of Independence, the law was used to
take over homes and lands that Arabs had left empty or abandoned during or
following the fighting.
The current controversy concerns to what extent
the state can do the same in east Jerusalem, with all of the legal, political
and international issues involved.
Reportedly the state has had
inconsistent policies on using the law over the years, sometimes invoking it and
sometimes not.
It's like they never heard of
eminent domain....
Labels: Arab land grabs, Arab land sales to Jews, East Jerusalem, eminent domain, Supreme Court
Military appeals court validates purchase of Machpeila House
Last year, a group of Jews
moved into a building that was purchased by the Hebron Jewish community from an Arab after the Arab who arranged the sale was
arrested by the 'Palestinian Authority.' Despite the fact that the purchase of Machpeila House appeared to be valid, then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak
ordered the Jews expelled from the building. At the time, Barak's biggest opponent on the issue was the current Defense Minister,
Moshe Yaalon. Now, a military appeals court has ruled that
the purchase of the building by the Jews was valid. Will Yaalon let them move in?
[F]amilies could only move into
the building if Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon authorizes the purchase and gives
them permission to do so.
Coalition chairman MK Yariv Levin (Likud)
immediately called on Ya’alon to allow Jews to move into the home.
“They
bought this house justly in the city of our forefathers,” Levin said at the
Likud faction meeting in the Knesset on Monday. “We will continue to
contribute to Jewish settlement in Hebron.”
Unfortunately, the government has plenty to fear here (and for the record, the time has come to overcome those fears).
The PA has since jailed and sentenced
to death the Palestinian who sold them the property, according to Hebron
resident MK Orit Struck (Bayit Yehudi).
At the time, the Civil
Administration of Judea and Samaria had said that on the surface, the documents
looked authentic, but the issue was more the absence of a purchase
permit.
Security sources had also said they were concerned about the
building’s location in an otherwise Palestinian neighborhood in a section of the
city under Israeli military control.
Palestinians also live in a small
section of the building, which was not purchased by the settlers.
It
abuts a Palestinian school and borders the area of the city under the
Palestinian Authority’s jurisdiction.
The portion of the building
purchased by settlers has been boarded up for more than a year, but an Israeli
flag has continued to fly there. In a recent visit to the city, The Jerusalem
Post noted a Palestinian flag flying from a nearby building.
Struck said
the military judicial panel’s decision was a “serious indictment against those
who decided to evacuate the home.” The building’s evacuation, she said, was
unprofessional, unfair, and had no basis in fact.
“It is very sad that
someone decided to throw Jews out of the homes because they were Jews,” she
said. “Then they wrapped it in legal cellophane claiming that they acted for
judicial reasons.”
Struck said she was hopeful Ya’alon would authorize
the building’s habitation by Jews.
In any event. the Jews may be a long way from moving in.
In 2012, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court validated
the purchase of a three-story structure on the outskirts of the city, known as
Beit Hashalom. Following the verdict, former defense minister Ehud Barak
approved the sale and its habitation by Jews. But the building remains empty
pending an appeal by the initial Palestinian owners.
If we don't assert our rights, no one else will.
Labels: Arab land sales to Jews, Hebron
Jerusalem, where buying an apartment is a 'dangeorus provocation'
The moonbats at Piece by Piece Now are furious because 'Zionist settlers' have taken over three apartments in what's described as a 'Palestinian-owned building' in the 'east' Jerusalem neighborhood of Jebel Mukaber. They are describing the 'takeover' as a 'dangerous provocation.'
Isn't that a funny way to describe what happens when
someone buys an apartment and moves into it?
In a statement released Monday, Peace Now said the move is "not only a
dangerous provocation which is threatening the stability in the fragile
situation of Jerusalem, but also a threat to the possibility to get to a
two-state solution and a compromise in Jerusalem."
According to Palestinian official news agency WAFA, settlers on
Monday took over three apartments in a Palestinian-owned building in
Jebl Mukaber, claiming ownership of the apartments, according to
Palestinian official news agency WAFA.
Quoting the Wadi Hilweh
Information Center, WAFA reported the building had a demolition order
from the Jerusalem Municipality for being built without a permit ten
years ago.
Peace Now added the timing of the take-over is "not
coincidental," as the government is planning to give the green light to
building permits in all settlements, sending the message to settlers to
hurry and establish facts on the ground.
The take-over follows a report by Peace Now
released over the weekend, stating Israel this year published the
largest number of housing tenders – 3,046 – in the last decade over the
pre-1967 lines.
It calculated the number of housing tenders issued
in east Jerusalem and the West Bank to place in perspective Israel’s
announcement that it would publish an additional 3,000 such tenders, a
move which it said, could bring the number of pending new units over the
pre-1967 lines to 6,046 this year.
Useful idiots.
Labels: Arab land sales to Jews, East Jerusalem, Peace Now
Magistrate Court rules Hebron's Shalom House belongs to Jews, but will Barak let them live there?
Some of you may recall Hebron's Shalom House, which was
legally purchased by Jews from Arabs in 2007, and from which the Jews were expelled by then-Defense Minister... Ehud Barak in December 2008 until the courts could '
decide on ownership.'
On Thursday, the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court decided that the 'Palestinian' who sold the building and then claimed that he didn't had so many holes in his story that he must be lying. The Court gave the State 30 days to turn the house over to its rightful Jewish owners, the Jewish community of Hebron.
This would be cause for rejoicing but for the fact that in order to live there, the Jews need the approval of the Defense Ministry, which is still headed by...
Ehud Barak.
In March 2007, 150 settlers moved into the building, claiming that the two companies, Tal Investments and the Association for Renewing the Jewish Community in Hebron, had purchased it, in transactions that occurred in 2004 and 2005, from its Palestinian owners for NIS 700,000.
But the Palestinian owners denied the claim and asked the police to help evict the building’s new Jewish residents. They petitioned the High Court of Justice against the residents, and the state in its submission to the court said that the residents must leave.
It based its decision in part on police claims that documents relating to the sale were forged.
The High Court of Justice ordered the families to leave but said that the property should remain idle until the purchase claim was adjudicated.
Settlers then turned to the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, which on Thursday ruled that the settlers had indeed purchased the property and that they were not the ones who had forged the documents.
Jewish ownership of the structure expands the community’s property holding in the city. The structure is located on the outskirts of Hebron, near the Kiryat Arab settlement. It overlooks the road, which is leads to the Cave of the Patriarchs and provides a strategic overview of the area.
It is also abuts a Muslim graveyard and a mosque, as well as Palestinian homes and shops.
Hagit Ofran of Peace Now called on the Defense Ministry not to authorize Jewish presence in the home. “There is no need to expand the Jewish community in Hebron,” Ofran said.
She added that their presence in the home prior to its evacuation had been a provocation. In the days that lead to the evacuation Jewish activists had vandalized the mosque, the cemetery and a number of Palestinian homes in the area.
But Likud Ministers Yuli Edelstein, Gideon Sa’ar and Yisrael Katz said Barak now had an obligation to correct the injustice, which had occurred and to allow the Jewish families to return to the home.
Kiryat Arba Council head Melachi Levinger, whose father Moshe, was among the founders of the Hebron Jewish community, said that the court’s ruling, “proves our contention throughout all these years that we have the right to buy property and settle anywhere in the land of Israel.”
He called on Barak to allow Jewish families to return both to the Beit HaShalom building and to another structure which the community claims to have purchased this year, Beit HaMachpela, located near the Cave of the Patriarchs.
Israel Radio reported that the court concluded that the 'Palestinian' seller was lying because he feared for his life in the event that it came out that he had sold land to a Jew.
But something tells me that the Defense Ministry is never, ever going to sign off on this.
Labels: Arab land sales to Jews, Ehud Barak, Hebron
Yet another anti-Israel double standard
Here's something I never knew before.
You will recall that last month, in response to a Supreme Court order, the residents of Beit El's Ulpana neighborhood were 'voluntarily'
expelled from their homes because the homes were built on 'private Palestinian land.'
I always knew there was private Jewish land in Judea and Samaria (and Gaza, for that matter) that had been purchased by Jews before 1948. What I did not know is that Kings Abdullah (the grandfather - not the current one) and Hussein of Jordan built some of the largest 'Palestinian refugee camps' on privately owned
Jewish land - specifically on land owned by the Jewish Agency.
Specifically, the Dehaishe 'refugee camp' outside Bethlehem and the El Aroub 'refugee camp' (from which Jews are
regularly stoned) between Gush Etzion and Hebron, were both built on land owned by the Jewish Agency. What's worse, Israel cannot even build 'bypass roads' around El Aroub because it cannot take the necessary 'Palestinian fields' to build those roads by eminent domain and the 'Palestinians' won't sell them.
So why doesn't the Jewish Agency go into court and demand the expulsion of the 'refugee camps' like the 'Palestinian landowners' in Beit El's Ulpana neighborhood did? Because we're a bunch of wimps.
Labels: Arab land grabs, Arab land sales to Jews, Judea and Samaria
Accused of collaboration, 'Palestinian' responsible for preventing land sales to Jews commits suicide
Osama Hussein Mansour, the 49-year old 'Palestinian' who was in charge of ensuring that 'Palestinians' do not sell land to Israeli Jews, committed suicide on Sunday.
Mansour had been charged with collaboration with Israel in land sales.
Osama Hussein Mansour, 49, was killed when he jumped from the third floor of a building that serves as headquarters of the PA's Military Intelligence force.
A PA security source said that Mansour was arrested three weeks ago for collaboration with Israel and involvement in land transactions with Israelis.
The source said that Mansour had been in charge of a department that was created by the PA to prevent Palestinians from selling lands to Israelis.
"We discovered that the man who was responsible for thwarting such land deals was himself involved in such transactions," the source told The Jerusalem Post.
The source pointed out that PA law bans Palestinians from conducting real estate deals with Israelis – a crime punishable by death in the Palestinian territories.
Mansour jumped to his death while he was being escorted to the offices of the Palestinian Military Prosecution in Ramallah.
And you wonder why it's so difficult to prove title to land in Judea and Samaria.
But give them a 'state' and they'll stop murdering people for selling land to Jooos.
Labels: Arab land sales to Jews, collaborators
Report: Ulpana developer knew that homes were built on private land
Haaretz is reporting that the developer of the Ulpana neighborhood in Beit El, which the Supreme Court has ordered destroyed on July 1 because it was allegedly built on 'private Palestinian land,'
'knew' that the development was built on private land (Israel Radio reported this as the developer saying that the developer admitted that his company did not purchase the land, which is not the same as knowing that he need to purchase it).
Yoel Tsur, CEO of the company that built the neighborhood and owns 24 of the 30 houses that the High Court of Justice has ordered razed, admitted in a police interrogation three years ago that it was built on land whose purchase was never finalized.
...
In 2009, police questioned Tsur under caution. His statements, reported here for the first time, reveal that settlement officials always knew the location was problematic.
Tsur said that in the mid-1990s, Amana, the settlement movement's construction arm, tried to purchase the plots in question, which are listed in the Civil Administration's land registry as Lot 34 and Lot 39. "In June 2000, a contract was signed to sell Lot 34 at a price of $6,000 per dunam, or $183,000 in total," he said.
That, however, was two years after construction at the site began.
Moreover, even according to Tsur, the contract covered only Lot 34. "I was told, I don't remember by whom, that Lot 39 was in the process of being purchased and that the deal would be completed," he said.
Asked by police whether it was completed, he answered "I don't know." Amana, he added, is the one that dealt with the land issue.
But don't go blaming Tsur or Amana just yet.
Asked why he built without a permit from either the local council or the Civil Administration, Tsur told the police, "Since the Housing Ministry was a partner to planning the houses, to financing the infrastructure - electricity, sewage, water roads, sidewalks, walls, buttresses, railings - I thought in my innocence that there was no obstacle to building the houses ... A plan was submitted to the Beit El local council, and when the Housing Ministry began financing infrastructure for the project, I thought that in practice, the process had been approved."
And to give you some idea of how difficult it is to buy land in Judea and Samaria:
Police also concluded that the seller of Lot 34 - which Amana finally tried to register in its name only after the High Court petition was filed in 2008 - didn't actually own it. Last September, four months after the state promised to demolish the houses and three days before a High Court hearing on the case, Amana challenged that conclusion in the Jerusalem District Court. It will hear the suit in July.
As far as I am aware, the central registry for land in Judea and Samaria only started in 1967. It is difficult to determine who owned land before then and whether documents are authentic.
But at this point, I don't believe it matters. Most Western countries have a property law concept called adverse possession, which says that if you are in possession of a piece of property for a certain number of years, even if you had no right to be there in the first place, you have 'earned' the right to stay there. (By the way, the concept is an ancient Jewish concept that dates to the Mishna - see Bava Bathra Chapter 3). Given that construction on this property started in 1998 with government approval, and that the Supreme Court case was first filed in 2008, the people who have lived there since the early part of the last decade ought to be allowed to stay. The government ought to step up to the plate and compensate the Arab land owners to the extent that they can prove their ownership. Throwing people out of their homes under these circumstances makes no sense.
Labels: Arab land sales to Jews, Beit El, Judea and Samaria
Why isn't Muhammad Abu Shahala all over the western media?
Have you ever heard of Muhammad Abu Shahala? If not, you should.
Caroline Glick tells his story.
THIS WEEK, a Palestinian court sentenced Muhammad Abu Shahala to death for selling a home in Hebron near the Cave of the Patriarchs to Jews. Shahala was arrested shortly after several Jewish families moved into the house last month. He was reportedly tortured and quickly tried and sentenced to die by a PA court.
The PA was established in May 1994. The first law it adopted defined selling land to Jews as a capital offense. Shortly thereafter scores of Arab land sellers began turning up dead in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria in both judicial and extrajudicial killings.
Leaders of the Jewish community of Hebron wrote a letter to international leaders this week asking them to intervene with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and demand that he cancel Shahala's sentence. They addressed the letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy, the director-general of the International Red Cross, Yves Daccord, as well as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres. In it they wrote, "It is appalling to think that property sales should be defined as a 'capital crime' punishable by death.
"The very fact that such a 'law' exists within the framework of the PA legal system points to a barbaric and perverse type of justice, reminiscent of practices implemented during the dark ages."
They went on to make the reasonable comparison between the PA's law prohibiting land sales to Jews to Nazi Germany's Nuremburg laws that constrained and finally outlawed trade between Jews and Germans. The letter concluded with the question, "Is the Palestinian Authority a reincarnation of the Third Reich?"
And who is protesting Muhammad Abu Shahala's death sentence?
Only the Jews.
Certainly this is newsworthy. Yet a search of the New York Times Web site turn up zero matches for the search term "Muhammad Abu Shahala," only asking if you meant someone else.
Similarly, a search of the Washington Post Web site also turned up zero matches for "Muhammad Abu Shahala."
And a search on the Wall Street Journal Web site returned, "Sorry, there are no results for your search query, please try another search."
Maybe the fact that even the sale of property by a Palestinian to a Jew is a crime punishable by death under the Palestinian Authority is "another example of why there is no peace." And remember, this is the "moderate" regime to which Israel is supposed to make concessions.
Where's the good sense? Where's the tolerance? Where's the coverage?
Where? It's just Muslims killing Muslims. No one is interested in that. Peace?
Labels: anti-Israel media bias, Arab land sales to Jews, Hebron
Here we go again....
Once again, revenants have been ordered to
leave a building in Hebron, this time no later than May 15. I'm not sure, but I believe it might be the building at left in the picture (if anyone familiar with the buildings could confirm, that would be helpful).
The house in question belongs to Zechariah Bakri, a Palestinian man, and is adjacent to a Jewish settlement in the Hebron neighborhood Tel Rumeida. It was deserted in 2001, when the IDF restricted the movement of Palestinians in the area.
The settlers took possession of the house in 2005, claiming that the construction company Tal Lebniya, owned by Moshe Zar, had lawfully purchased the property.
In 2009, Bakri petitioned the court for a declarative ruling that he is the rightful owner of the house. Tal Lebniya claimed that Bakri had given a man by the name of Nadji Albatash power of attorney to negotiate the sale of the house on his behalf, but failed to provide any documents indicating a sale took place.
Other documents the company presented to the court, which allegedly indicated that other family members had transferred ownership of the property and which were allegedly signed by the mayor of Hebron, were exposed as forgeries by a police expert.
In his court testimony, Zar said that he was not involved in the purchase, but merely let the real buyers use his company to complete the purchase.
The middle man the settlers claimed had conducted the purchase told the court that he had never met the settlers and has not been in Hebron, where he is a wanted man, since 1999. He did concede that he allowed his name to be used for NIS 5,000.
Somehow, I suspect that this story is not as cut and dried as Haaretz makes it appear. But thus far, an email to the Hebron Jewish community's website has gone unanswered. Stay tuned.
Labels: Arab land sales to Jews, death sentence, Hebron
Save the Machpeila House broker
Israeli lawmakers are calling on the government to save the broker who sold Machpeila House in Hebron to Jews from execution by the 'Palestinian Authority.' You see,
selling land to Jews is a capital offense in 'Palestine.'
Danny Dayan, chairman of the Council of Communities in Judea and Samaria, has called on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to act quickly to save the life of Muhammad Abu Shahala.
The broker, who acquired the building on behalf of its Jewish owners, has been sentenced to death by the PA for the “crime” of helping Jews purchase property.
“Abu Shahala will be executed in Ramallah, barely 15 minutes' drive from the government's headquarters in Jerusalem,” Dayan said. “He is being executed for the 'crime' of helping Jews buy a home in Hevron.
“Israel cannot allow this travesty to take place.”
Ramallah, the PA government seat of power, also is the location of the headquarters of Fatah leader and PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
And you believed
the government of Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak's claim that the Jews didn't really buy the property, didn't you?
Labels: Arab land sales to Jews, Hebron
Selling land to Jews is punishable by death
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
Here's a story about a 'Palestinian' who was murdered because he was accused of selling a house to Jews. Yes, selling land to Jews here is punishable by death. What are the odds of your hearing that from the Western mainstream media?
Let's go to the videotape.
Labels: Arab land sales to Jews, death penalty
70-year old 'Palestinian' jailed for selling land to Israel... in 1981!
A Nablus court sentenced a 70-year old 'Palestinian' man (not the one pictured) to ten years in jail on Tuesday for selling land to Israelis...
in 1981.
He violated the Article 114 of the [Jordanian] Penal Code of 1960 number 16, which prohibits selling land to "the enemy," with "the enemy" specifically defined elsewhere as "any man or judicial body [corporation] of Israeli citizenship living in Israel or acting on its behalf."
After Jordan's peace treaty with Israel, this law was revised, but the Palestinian Arabs still use the 1960 Penal Code - even though they have a draft law to replace it with a similar law mandating the death penalty for anyone selling land to "the occupier."
But just give them a 'state' and they'll get rid of all those laws like that one.
Labels: Arab land sales to Jews, death penalty, Palestinian
