Trouble brewing in Jerusalem

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If Israeli authorities demolish homes in Silwan and evict families in Sheikh Jarrah they risk a violent uprising by local residents

Seth Freedman
guardian.co.uk, Friday 20 March 2009 12.00 GMT

Either side of Jerusalem's Old City walls, a storm is brewing, threatening to engulf residents the length and breadth of the region. If the Israeli authorities make good on their promise to demolish homes in Silwan and evict families in Sheikh Jarrah, locals swear that Israel will be drenched with blood and tears, rather than with the Biblical blend of milk and honey said to flow through the Holy Land.

Twice in as many hours this week I was told by outraged east Jerusalemites that any assault on Palestinian property in the area would prove the catalyst for the third intifada: a promise rather than a threat, they assured me. Standing in front of a 10ft banner demanding "Stop the ethnic cleansing", Balad leader Jamal Zahalka issued a similar clarion call into the microphones and video cameras of the onlooking press pack, calling on Israeli officials to immediately halt their plans if they wished to avoid an inferno of resistance.

He was standing on a disputed patch of land in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where the authorities are seeking to evict 10 families from their homes, apparently to make way for the construction of 200 settlement housing units and a shopping mall. Lawyers for the families have applied to freeze the eviction orders, claiming that underhand measures have been employed to strip the residents of their homes, but the omens don't look promising for their clients.

If past performance is any guide to predicting the future, the authorities will not stop until the 51 family members are turfed out, and the land transferred to one of the shadowy settler organisations hell-bent on "Judaising" the neighbourhood. As we stood listening to a trio of Balad and Hadash MKs speak, the fruit of the settlers' previous labour loomed above us atop the nearest hill. The Maaleh Zeitim settlement is undergoing an expansion tacking another 60 housing units on to the original 50. In addition, a variety of individual settler houses brazenly flying Israeli flags sit uncomfortably alongside the neighbouring Arab homes.

The fury of the Sheikh Jarrah families was more than matched by the residents of Silwan, to the immediate south of the Old City. Here 88 homes have been slated for demolition to make way for a national park, threatening to make homeless more than 1,000 members of the community.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/19/israel-palestinian-territories

[safeinOhio]

1. I see no excuse for this

It only proves that Israel is hell bent on starting fights in a land grab. Never a thought of compensation, only take and then blame the occupied victims. If this type of action keeps up, it'll be the death of Israel. I feel bad for the decent Jews that oppose this type of action.