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NEWS AND VIEWS THAT IMPACT LIMITED CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with
power to endanger the public liberty." - - - - John Adams

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Israel steals the 53 year home of elderly Arabs



"Thou shalt not steal"

  • It did not work back when Moses brought the 10 commandments down. And it does not work today.


(RT News)  -  An elderly Palestinian couple have told RT that it's "great injustice" if Israel carries out a decision to evict them and their relatives from the home they have owned in East Jerusalem for over 50 years. The EU is already urging Israel to reconsider the step.

The Shamasne family have been living in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood since 1964, when the area was under Jordanian rule. When Israel took over East Jerusalem in 1967, nobody claimed the rights to the property.

The issue came to light after an Israeli right-leaning settler group, the Israel Land Fund, found the previous owners of the house several years ago.

“We lived for 53 years in this house, it is a great injustice. Israel should give us back our land. They take our homes and claim it is theirs,” 76-year-old Fahmiah Shamasne told RT.

Under Israeli law, property proven to have been owned by Jews before 1948 can be reclaimed. Four years ago the Shamasnes lost their appeal to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the family must hand over their home.


The Palestinians were to leave last week amid police inspections of the building and threats of forceful eviction. The decision has sparked anger among the Arab population of East Jerusalem, who staged prayers outside the house in a show of protest.

“The police are threatening us. We don’t know what to do, we are sitting here like fools. We don’t know whether to stay or leave. We have nowhere to go to,” the elderly woman told AFP news agency. She added that her 84-year-old husband will not leave unless he is forced to.

“Maybe if we were to find at least a room we could leave. But even if you were to drag out my husband and kick him, he would refuse to go.”

Other members of the family also made it clear that they would not give up the place where they spent their whole lives. The couple’s, Mohammed Shamasne, said he would struggle for the family property.

Law is unjust – Israeli ex-attorney general

The Palestinian family’s claims to their property in Sheikh Jarrah were supported by former Attorney General of Israel Michael Ben-Yair, whose relatives also had to flee the eastern part of the city in 1948.
“The current Israeli law that enables double compensation only for Jews for [lost] properties in East Jerusalem from the times before 1948 is unjust,” Ben- Yair said, as cited by the Jerusalem Post.

The Israeli authorities should let the current inhabitants of the disputed house stay and give them all the necessary rights to it, Ben-Yair added.
Meanwhile, the fate of the Shamasne family as well as others facing eviction has caused grave concern from the European Union missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah.
“The EU calls on the Israeli authorities to reconsider these decisions,”the missions said in a statement on Friday, adding that some 180 households in the area are also facing the threat of eviction.
Read More . . . .

"The Israelis want this whole area.
Their plan is to force as many of us as possible to leave," said Palestinian Christian Daoud Nassar, who is fighting to hold on to his family's farm in Nahalin.
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Back in 2011 this was one of the very first articles I posted.  Nothing has changed.  Peace is hard enough to obtain. It is impossible when you are a thief.
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Read More:
Do Arabs have Property Rights?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The always argument as

"who comes first ... "