Jewish nationalists and Palestinians clashed in an East Jerusalem neighborhood on Tuesday after the Israelis took over a house by court order in a predominantly Arab area. The confrontation further strained tensions in this contested city, where competing Israeli and Palestinian claims have become a sticking point in the Obama administration’s efforts to restart peace talks.

Naturally, the UN condemned Israel:

The United Nations said in a statement on Tuesday that the “secretary general has expressed his dismay at the continuation of demolitions, evictions and the installment of Israeli settlers in Palestinian neighborhoods in occupied East Jerusalem.”

“Provocative actions such as these,” it continued, “create inevitable tensions, undermine trust, often have tragic human consequences and make resuming negotiations and achieving a two-state solution more difficult.”

The Times provides some background:

The Kurds’ home is adjacent to a site held by Jews to be the ancient tomb of Shimon Hatzadik, or Simeon the Just, a Jewish high priest from the days of the Second Temple. A Jewish organization reclaimed the land around the tomb based on property deeds that date from the 1870s. The Palestinians say the deeds were forged.

The Palestinians’ homes were built in the 1950s by a United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees when the area was under Jordanian control. The families say that Jordan gave them ownership of the houses but that the homes were never formally registered in their names.

The Jerusalem Post adds a few more details:

A large number of homes in the neighborhood that belonged to Jews before 1948, were seized by the Jordanian government under its Enemy Property Law when Jordan occupied the area from 1948 to 1967.

In 1956, 28 Palestinian families who had been receiving refugee assistance from UNRWA, were selected to benefit from a project in which they forfeited their refugee aid and moved into homes built on “formerly Jewish property leased by the Custodian of Enemy Property to the Ministry of Development.”

The agreement stipulated that the ownership of the homes was to be put in the families’ names – a step that never took place – and court battles between Jewish groups that represent some of the former Jewish homeowners and the current Palestinian residents have been going on, in some cases, since the 1980s.

So then, this neighborhood was taken by force from Jews by Jordanians. Israeli Jews go to court to restore the property to Jewish ownership and the UN objects? I thought that the UN subscribed to:

… the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war

Or is that just a convenient formulation that really means “we object to Israel winning wars but we don’t mind when Jews are forcibly removed from their homes?”

Israelly Cool observes:

The UN has been marking as a day of mourning the day on which it recommended partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state.
…
Need I say any more?

Related: Snapped Shot wonders if “scuffle” includes viciously beating someone with construction material?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

It is one of the most watched pieces of real estate in the world, 35 acres where an under-the-breath prayer or a whiff of a rumor can rouse warnings of war.

In both Judaism and Islam, the area known respectively as the Temple Mount and the Noble Sanctuary is considered a formative location. Jews believe it to be the site of Solomon’s Temple and key biblical events. Muslims regard it as the spot where Muhammad was brought by the angel Gabriel before embarking on a trip to heaven to visit the other prophets.

It also remains a flash point, and a series of disturbances there this fall showed just how difficult it will be for Israelis and Palestinians to reach agreement on an area over which they negotiate not just as political entities but also as representatives of two faiths with an often-troubled relationship.

I wish he were stronger in terms of the Jewish claim. Archaeology has confirmed the Temple. It’s more than just a Jewish “belief.”

However later on there are a few things that bother me.

If the Palestinians “want to let go of an area in the West Bank, no one from the outside is going to say anything,” said Abdul Fattah Salah, Jordan’s minister of religious affairs. “But when it comes to Jerusalem, they can’t. It is tied to all Muslims.” The Jordanian ministry employs 500 people who staff the Jerusalem compound.
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Salah said the hope is that if part of Jerusalem becomes the capital of a Palestinian state, Muslims from any country will be able to begin visiting a site where it is considered a special blessing to pray — access that he said Israel is unlikely to grant if it maintains sole sovereignty over the city.

First of all, Schneider lets stand the exaggerated claim of the Muslim attachment to Jerusalem. Yes Jerusalem is holy to Muslims, but for much of Islamic history Jerusalem was ignored. Even the Crusades aroused little interest at first. This leads Daniel Pipes to conclude:

First, Jerusalem will never be more than a secondary city for Muslims; “belief in the sanctity of Jerusalem,” Sivan rightly concludes, “cannot be said to have been widely diffused nor deeply rooted in Islam.” Second, the Muslim interest lies not so much in controlling Jerusalem as it does in denying control over the city to anyone else. Third, the Islamic connection to the city is weaker than the Jewish one because it arises as much from transitory and mundane considerations as from the immutable claims of faith.

The other point Schneider should have challenged Salah on was his claim that until Jerusalem becomes part of a Palestinian state, Muslims from around the world won’t be able to visit it. I expect that Muslims from Arab countries that are hostile to Israel won’t be able to visit Jerusalem easily. So there is a solution. Make peace with Israel. (And of course the Jordanian doesn’t acknowledge that when his country ruled the Old City, Jews were forbidden from visiting their holy site!)

And then at the end of the article Schneider writes:

Given recent history, the fall riots were viewed by some here as a cause for optimism. They were on a comparatively small scale, led to no deaths on either side and, after a tense period from Yom Kippur through late October, appear to have dissipated without consequence.

Far worse has happened: Dozens of people died in 1996 in clashes that erupted after access was opened for tourists to a tunnel that ran on an ancient street alongside the wall. And a visit to the area by former prime minister Ariel Sharon in 2000 helped trigger the multi-year uprising known as the al-Aqsa Intifada.

Let’s give a little more detail as to what happened in 1996 and 2000. Barry Rubin recently recalled:

In 1996, the Israeli government opened a tunnel which tourists could walk through and see certain features of the ancient wall and Jerusalem. Rumors that the Jews were trying to destroy the mosques were orchestrated by the Palestinian leadership with many lives lost and the peace process placed in jeopardy. As a result, too, 85 Palestinians and 16 Israelis were killed, and more than 1,300 people–mostly Palestinians–were wounded, a terrible bloodshed for no rational reason whatsoever.

In 2000, a brief tour of the Temple Mount by Ariel Sharon—he merely walked through for about an hour, looked around, and then left—was the rationale used to set off an intifada that lasted for about five years and cost several thousand lives.

Afterward, Marwan Barghouti, leader of Fatah on the West Bank, described in detail how he used this as an excuse to set off the uprising. This violence took place about the time that President Bill Clinton, with Israeli agreement, proposed the creation of an independent Palestinian state which would, among other things, control most of east Jerusalem.

Schneider uses “erupted” and “triggered” to describe how the violence started in those circumstances. But in both cases as Prof. Rubin observed, the violence was incited. Worse in 2000, the Arafat-PA orchestrated violence came after rejecting a peace offer that would have given the Palestinians significant control over the Temple Mount.

Left unsaid by Schneider and unfortunately not even implicit in his article is that there’s no peace in the Middle East, because the Arabs generally and the Palestinians specifically, refuse to make peace with Israel. Jerusalem might well be a sticking point, but it’s because the Arab world has chosen to make it one, rejecting any compromises with Israel.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Really?

Following a day of clashes between security forces and Arab rioters in Jerusalem, Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on Sunday evening stated that the fate of the capital would be determined by force, not negotiations.

“The fate of Jerusalem will be determined only by confrontation and not by the negotiating tables,” Mashaal said in a speech, according to Channel 10.

“The Israelis want to divide al-Aqsa Mosque, and this is not all. They want to hold their religious ceremonies in the mosque … in preparation for demolishing it and building their temple there,” he reportedly said.

In case you were thinking that perhaps he just meant “traditionally Arab” east Jerusalem (which is not; the Jewish Quarter is in “traditionally Arab” east Jerusalem, well, he didn’t. Emphasis mine.

“Jerusalem is all of Jerusalem, not only [the east Jerusalem neighborhood of] Abu-Dis. The Arabs and Muslims are [the city's] residents, and the Zionists have no claim over it,” he said.

And of course, he didn’t call it Jerusalem. He called it “al-Quds.”

And here’s your hypocritical laugh-line of the year:

“Jordan, out of its historical responsibilities in being the custodian of the holy places in Jerusalem, is extremely worried about what is taking place and warns against going ahead with this provocative behavior on the part of Israeli troops,” he reportedly added.

This is a picture of the Jordanian protection of Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967:

And this is the synagogue after Israel captured east Jerusalem and restored the desecrated Jewish holy sites:

Methinks the Jordanian omitted the word “Muslim” before “holy places” in that line. Because Jordan may have been the custodian of the holy places for nineteen years, but it certainly wasn’t a good guardian of Jewish sites. And it wasn’t good for Christians, either.

But hey, let’s not let an opportunity to bash Israel go by unheeded. It’s almost as good as the AP calling the rioters “protesters” in every news story they write about the Temple Mount riots. Check out that incredibly provocative picture at the link. What are they protesting, exactly?

“Jerusalem is not a settlement. It is the sovereign capital of the State of Israel. We have been building in Jerusalem for 3,000 years.”

British protesters were out in droves tonight, forcing Bibi to use the back entrance to 10 Downing Street. But I’d have to say that he got the last word.

The AP story didn’t seem to get the same quote as Ynet. In fact, the AP story doesn’t mention Jerusalem at all. I wonder how that happened? Because they’re both quoting the same press conference. The Reuters reporter and editor felt it was worth quoting.

“We accept no limitations on our sovereignty … Jerusalem is not a settlement,” Netanyahu said in response to a question.

Of course, they then called it “Arab east Jerusalem,” the lable which totally ignores the fact that the Jewish Quarter is in the eastern section of the city.

I’m shocked that this got into the AP report:

Netanyahu discussed at length his visit Tuesday to the London museum of the Palestine Exploration Fund, an organization that sent explorers on expeditions to the Holy Land in the 1800s to examine the physical traces of the Bible and Jewish history. He talked about the Arab invasion of the newly declared state of Israel in 1948 and the Arab “stranglehold” on Israel before the 1967 Mideast War, in which Israel captured territories that included the West Bank and Gaza. He touched on the construction of the first Jewish neighborhood outside the Old City of Jerusalem in the 19th century.

Of course, it was buried deep near the end. But Netanyahu is an excellent speaker. He’s getting his message across, in spite of the media barrage against him.

Thirty-eight members of the Ghawi family were removed from six apartments that made up one of the houses. There are 17 people in the Hanoun family.

The houses were built in the 1950s by a United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees when the area was under Jordanian control. Jordan gave the families ownership of the houses but had not formally registered the buildings in their names by the time the 1967 war broke out, according to the families’ lawyer, Hosni Abu Hussein.

In the early 1970s, a Jewish association claimed ownership of the land around the tomb, based on property deeds from Ottoman times. At first the Palestinian families agreed to pay rent to the association to continue living there as protected tenants. Mr. Abu Hussein said they stopped paying when he learned that the Jewish deeds had been forged.

Eviction orders were issued, though the authenticity of the property deeds is still debated in Israeli courts.

Robert H. Serry, the United Nations special Middle East coordinator, who visited the Hanoun home in the spring, said in a statement that he deplored the evictions, which he described as “totally unacceptable actions by Israel.”

The British Consulate, in Sheikh Jarrah, said in a statement that its officials were “appalled” by the evictions.

Those responses were mild compared to that of terror supporter, Helena Cobban, who referred to the actions as “ethnic cleansing.”

But Barry Rubin writes:

In fact, the matter in hand was an Israeli Supreme Court–an institution that has often ruled on the side of Palestinian plaintiffs–decision in a 30-year-old case. Individual Israeli citizens have been going through courts for years to regain their property seized by Jordan’s government after the 1948 war.

The court ruled that their ownership documents were legitimate, while those provided by the Palestinians were counterfeited. It was not hard to prove the latter point since it is on record that they were moved into the property by Jordan’s government without any ownership on their part. While there have been politically motivated battles or questionable claims over property, this is not one of them. There is certainly room for debate on this complex issue but not simplistic condemnation.

Think about the absurdity of a U.S. secretary of state publicly focusing on a routine property case involving two houses as if it were some massive human rights’ violation.

Just Journalism asked a question that few other reporters bothered asking and got a response.

Just Journalism contacted Ir Amim, an Israeli organisation dedicated to advocacy on behalf of Arab residents of east Jerusalem, and asked about the circumstances of the evictions. A representative replied:

“Indeed, the legal issues revolving the Sheikh Jarrah’s evictions are quite complex. In short, the Israeli court have accepted the settlers’ claim of ownership over the property, but recognized the Palestinian residents to be protected tenants. Some of the 28 families continued to pay the rent, but some did not accept the court’s ruling and therefore did not pay the rent. Against those, the court issued eviction orders.”

According to the advocacy group’s own report, the case was brought by the landlords against the Ghawi and Hanun families ‘on the grounds of rent delinquency’. In other words the two families were evicted because they refused to pay their rent.

Then the United States doesn’t care one whit for Israeli law and has made matters worse by making a diplomatic incident out of it. Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren was called to the State Department for a rebuke. And in Jordan, Secretary of State Clinton responded to a question, while standing next to Jordan’s Foreign Minister, about the evictions.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think these actions are deeply regrettable. I have said before that the eviction of families and demolition of homes in East Jerusalem is not in keeping with Israeli obligations, and I urge the Government of Israel and municipal officials to refrain from such provocative actions. Both sides have responsibilities to refrain from provocative actions that can block the path toward a comprehensive peace agreement. Unilateral actions taken by either party cannot be used to prejudge the outcome of negotiations, and they will not be recognized as changing the status quo.

At the very same press conference Jordan rejected an American call for extending confidence building measures towards Israel. How did Secretary Clinton respond?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you so much, Minister.

Why should Israel have any confidence in American mediation?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

There is going to be some kind of showdown, methinks.

Israeli officials said the country’s ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, was summoned to the State Department over the weekend and told that a project being developed by an American millionaire in the disputed section of the holy city should not go ahead.

[...] According to Army Radio, the U.S. has demanded that planning approval for the project be revoked.

Amazingly, the AP understands that some territories recaptured in the Six Day War are “disputed” territories—but apparently only when the dispute is whether Jews may live there.

The current narrative utterly ignores the Jewish history of the city, including the fact that there were 100,000 Jews in Jerusalem in 1948, many of whom lived in the Jewish Quarter in the eastern half of the city:

East Jerusalem is an especially volatile issue because it is the site of key Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites. The Palestinians want the traditionally Arab sector of the city to be the capital of their future state.

“The traditionally Arab sector” is a lie. The Jewish quarter was in eastern Jerusalem, which makes it, let’s think—a traditionally Jewish sector as well—but the news services can never seem to mention this.

And here, buried in the very bottom of the story, is something that is absolutely pertinent to why the Obama administration has no right to tell Israel to stop this project:

The east Jerusalem project is being developed by Irving Moskowitz, an influential supporter of Israeli settlement in east Jerusalem who purchased the Shepherd Hotel in 1985 and plans to tear it down and build apartments in its place.

The Jerusalem municipality issued a statement saying the purchase was legal and it had acted with “full transparency” in granting building permits.

The Obama administration is telling Israel to ignore its own laws. Why? Because the Obama administration is going with the narrative that there can be no Jews in “traditionally Arab” Jerusalem.

And how did the Prime Minister of Israel react to this demand?

On Sunday, Netanyahu told his Cabinet there would be no limits on Jewish construction anywhere in “unified Jerusalem.”

“We cannot accept the fact that Jews wouldn’t be entitled to live and buy anywhere in Jerusalem,” Netanyahu declared, calling Israeli sovereignty over the entire city “indisputable.”

The Israeli public is solidly behind Netanyahu on this. Just as Obama is trying to ignore American public opinion on any legislation he wants to push through (cf: ObamaCare’s sinking poll numbers).

Once again, we have an example of the Obama administration dictating only to Israel, and giving the Palestinians a pass.

This man is no friend of Israel. The 78% of Jews who voted for him were fooling themselves.

Yesterday, Boker Tov Boulder aptly observed that following a terror attack:

… there’s the attack by the media that inevitably follows. Then there’s the aftermath, in which we can see the results of the first two, usually along the lines of Israel being weakened and our enemies further emboldened.

The attack she referred to was by the BBC.

It didn’t take long elsewhere.

via memeorandum

The New York Time reported on yesterday’s terror attack. There’s nothing remarkable about the headline:

Palestinian Kills 3 With Construction Vehicle.

However that wasn’t the original headline, that read:

Construction Vehicle Kills 3 in Israel Attack

However as we all know construction vehicles don’t kill people, people kill people.

(h/t LGF’s link viewer)

Similarly Meryl observed that the AP headline used words as if:

… it was an accident, instead of a deliberate, murderous attack.

McClatchy’s Jerusalem correspondent showed his true colors with:

The video also shows a policeman shooting the lifeless man at point-blank range, a move that could spark questions from Israeli human rights groups about whether the officer’s shot was necessary and if he might have unnecessarily killed the man.

(Though, from the footage, it looks as if the first shots probably killed him.)

My first thoughts on observing this action would have been amazement at the heroism of the shooters; his first thought was of the possible human rights violation. The truth is that Israeli security forces follow a protocol of “confirming the kill.” This is especially important when terrorists may have explosives strapped to their bodies.

The Israelis intervening yesterday had no idea, of course, if the terrorist was indeed wearing explosives but it wasn’t a chance they could take. And given that he was at the controls of a construction vehicle, if he were still capable of controlling it he presented a danger.

Just for a reminder here’s what happened in Dimona a few months ago:

Shalom Bar Avi, a journalist speaking to Channel 10, said “I am here no longer as a journalist but as a simple citizen … I pray and hope my wife is okay.”

Bar Avi praised the police’s quick response to the attack, and said Mor, the officer who identified the second attacker shot “four or five times … he took no chances.”

Later Mor’s heroism was revealed in detail: He shot the terrorist in the head, and when the latter in his last breath still tried to press the detonator button, shot him four more times and killed him. Mor managed to kill the terrorist before he could explode and without hitting his explosive belt, thus preventing a much more devastating attack.

You don’t take chances. And while this isn’t the reason the terrorist was killed, Seraphic Secret notes:

Here’s the good news: this is one Muslim terrorist who will not be used in a disgraceful and damaging prisoner swap.

The reaction to terror against Israel is telling of the mindset of those reporting the news. Though it was reported that the terrorist yelled “Allahu Akbar” most press accounts still try to raise doubts that this was a terrorist attack rather than an accident or criminal act.

(There are those who complained that Al Jazeera’s coverage of the attack was too pro-Israel!)

Ha’aretz reports on the Israelis who stopped the attack.

“I approached the bus on my bicycle, and then began to run to the site, looking for a weapon to use against the terrorist,” he told reporters yesterday. The military censor imposed a gag order on his identity.

Near the bulldozer the young soldier found a civilian, Oron Ben-Shimon, 28, a regional manager of a security firm in Jerusalem, who was armed. “Together we tried to neutralize the terrorist, at least to lift his feet off the pedals.

“He shouted ‘Allah Akbar.’ At that moment I pulled the pistol that Oron carried and shot the terrorist three times in the head. After I verified that he was dead, I raised the pistol to make sure that passersby were not hurt,” he recounted.

“I went out on Jaffa Road,” says Oron, “and as I was driving I saw a crowd of people shouting ‘terrorist’ and ‘mad man.’ I put on a police hat, and took my pistol and ran toward the bulldozer.”

“I saw a policeman on the bulldozer with a drawn gun. I holstered my weapon and the policeman told me there was no need to shoot him because he passed out and we need to pull him out of the bulldozer.

“And then the terrorist woke up and grabbed the wheel and tried to run over more people. I was already on the bulldozer and I hit him with my fists in the face in an effort to take over the wheel. I shouted to the young man near me to shoot him. He drew my pistol from the holster and shot him three times in the head.”

Oron confirms that the terrorist was dead when shot by the policeman. Still even here, the terrorist apparently out of commission started his attack again.

Then there’s the heroism of a mother who saved her baby:

Seconds before being crushed to death by a bulldozer, 33-year-old Batsheva Unterman succeeded in unbuckling her 5-month-old baby from the car-seat and passing her out through the window to safety.

“Just as I took the baby out, he reversed on top of the car. The baby is okay, but not the mother,” Jeremy Aronson, the man who helped save the baby, told The Jerusalem Post quietly as he sat alone in the waiting room of Hadassah-University Hospital in Mount Scopus.

I am amazed by those who can act quickly at times of crisis. Unfortunately Mrs. Unterman didn’t survive.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

CAIRO, June 5 (Xinhua) — The Arab League (AL) Council has decided to hold an extraordinary meeting on June 15 to discuss the Israeli settlement activities in the disputed territory, an AL spokesman said on Thursday.

Abdel Aleem al-Abiyad, spokesman for AL chief Amr Moussa, made the announcement in a brief press release on Thursday, saying the meeting will be held at the level of permanent delegates.

On Sunday, Israeli Housing Ministry published a bid for the construction of more than 800 apartment units in east Jerusalem, the latest decision to build more houses in the disputed territory since the resumption of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks at the U.S.-sponsored Annapolis conference last November.

Hey, Arab League: Bite me.

“To tell you the truth I don’t quite understand this. Must Israel ask permission from some other authority in the world? It has been our capital for 3,000 years. We have been there since the time your forefathers used to drink wine, bury their daughters alive, and pray to multiple gods.”

Keidar was referring to a period Arabs call Jahiliyyah (ignorance of divine guidance), which prevailed in the Arab world before the time of the Islam. “So then,” he continued, “why must we speak about this? It has been our city for 3,000 years and will be for eternity.”

(Can’t wait to see a full transcript of that interview.)

Rayyan opened with the question, “Mr. Mordechai, is this decision meant to constitute another nail in the coffin of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations?”

The journalist appeared taken aback when Keidar answered, “To tell you the truth I don’t quite understand this. Must Israel ask permission from some other authority in the world? It has been our capital for 3,000 years. We have been there since the time your forefathers used to drink wine, bury their daughters alive, and pray to multiple gods.”

Keidar was referring to a period Arabs call Jahiliyyah (ignorance of divine guidance), which prevailed in the Arab world before the time of the Islam. “So then,” he continued, “why must we speak about this? It has been our city for 3,000 years and will be for eternity.”

Hehehehehehe. That’s a good one. But wait. There’s more.

The stunned Rayyan refused to give up. “Excuse me Mr. Mordechai! If you would like to speak about history let’s talk about the Kuran as well. You cannot deny the existence of Jerusalem in the Kuran! I ask you to refrain from making statements that offend Arabs and Muslims. Let’s please stay with our topic,” he said.

“Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Kuran,” Keidar said.

Rayyan stated the verse that, according to Muslim belief, refers to Jerusalem, but Keidar continued to object. “Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Kuran even once.”

And it isn’t. I believe the phrase is “the furthest mosque.”