"Moderate " Fatah spokesperson urges death for selling land to Jews

Today, seven Jewish families moved into homes they lawfully purchased in East Jerusalem, in a move so called "progressives" will likely characterize as ‘ethnic cleansing". The homes are in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silvan. Approximately 90 Jewish families - nearly 500 people live in Silwan.

Expect "progressives" to condemn this action, because segregated neighborhood are such a liberal value.

Expect the same "progressives" to ignore that a spokesperson for "moderate" Fatah espoused "death" as a penalty on the broker who sold the homes to Jews.

From the Jerusalem Post

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.

"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.

Read it all here

Ellen Cantarow: Apologist for Land Theft

by Becky Johnson

November 11, 2009

Santa Cruz, Ca. -- A friend of mine passed on an article by Ellen Cantarow. "Heroism in a Vanishing Landscape" published on the notorious, anti-Israel website, Counterpunch.org on November 10, 2009. In the article, Cantarow blasts all parties (except the Palestinian families themselves) and gives a unique history of the eviction of two families from the E. Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheik Jarrah. One that is highly selective, and which discounts the actual court decisions made regarding the disposition of the property according to law.

You can read Cantarow's article with my imbedded comments here.

BELOW IS AN EXCERPT:

ELLEN CANTAROW: In 1948 Ghawe’s grandparents fled from Ein Sfarand near Lydda. Ein Sfarand was bulldozed into the ground along with over 450 other Arab villages.

BECKY: Actually, Israel set up a commission, The Guardian of Absentee Assets, which dealt with all abandoned properties. They distinguished between public land, privately-owned land, and re-repatriated many Arabs with their property when they returned and petitioned the commission. Lands belonging to Palestinian Arab villagers in the areas taken over by Israel in 1967 generally remain in Palestinian Arab hands. To determine that these lands do not belong to anyone, the state checks the land registries, aerial photographs showing the lands to be uncultivated and then when convinced that these lands have no ownership, advertises in Arabic in the Arab newspapers that the state has declared these lands as its own and anyone having any kind of legal deed to contest this is invited to do so. If any Arab is able to produce a land deed proving the land is theirs, then the state leaves the land to the Arab. If there are still any doubts, then the issue is taken to court". But Cantarow wants readers to believe that all Arab land was confiscated and bulldozed.

ELLEN CANTAROW: Pretty national parks and kibbutzim erased any trace of the traditional Arab architecture, agriculture and the rest of life which once characterized Palestine. Hebrew names – Lod, for example, for Lydda - replaced the Arabic ones. The Ghawes fled to East Jerusalem where UNWRA (The United Nations Works Relief Agency) housed them as refugees. In 1956 they returned their refugee cards and rented a house from a local Palestinian builder.