By Assaf Sharon and Avner Inbar

Originally published in Hebrew in Haaretz, July 12th 2010. Translation courtesy of Coteret.

More than 40 public figures, academics and intellectuals sent a strong letter last week to the Attorney General, asking him to check suspicions of illegitimate and politically tendentious behavior by the Jerusalem police toward the popular protest in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. The signatories included a former attorney general, three former ministers of education, a former Knesset speaker, a retired district judge, a former civil service commissioner, Israel Prize winners and university presidents. That such a distinguished group of senior public figures would confront the police attests to the depth of the crisis created by the senior command in Jerusalem.

Since demonstrations against the settlement in Sheikh Jarrah began about seven months ago, more than 120 demonstrators have been arrested, the large majority of whom were detained for 36 hours or more. After the courts ruled that dispersing the demonstrations was illegal, the district police changed tactics: since December the area of the disputed houses has been surrounded with police barriers. But the barriers are used selectively: anyone with a religious-right wing appearance is allowed to pass through them with ease whereas others are forbidden entry.

In March the protesters petitioned the Supreme Court against the refusal of the Jerusalem police to allow them to hold a protest rally in the neighborhood. The district commander argued at the hearing that Sheikh Jarrah is one of the most explosive places in Jerusalem and therefore he could not allow political events to be held there.

Nonetheless, right-wing activists were allowed to hold clearly political events in the neighborhood. The peak of those events was on the last Jerusalem Day, when police allowed hundreds of extreme right-wingers into the area of the disputed houses. All day and all night young religious people danced to songs calling for revenge against the Gentiles in the middle of the street and in the yards of the Palestinian homes, with full police escort. Left-wing activists called to the site by the Arab residents were removed and some were even arrested.

Two days later the left-wing demonstrators wanted to hold their protest in the same place where the right-wing people had demonstrated. When the police officers refused and ordered the demonstrators to move away, hundreds of them sat down on the street in protest. The police responded with severe violence, injured many of the activists and arrested 14 of them, even though the protesters’ demonstration was completely nonviolent and was supported by most of the residents of the neighborhood. During the court hearing the police demanded to remove the activists from Sheikh Jarrah and did not stop short of digressing from the truth, such as imputing baseless charges of assault even after the court rebuked them for doing so.

Even those who were not convinced by the profusion of evidence accumulated over the last months as to the political tendency of the officers of the Jerusalem police would be hard-pressed to ignore the latest decision by the head of the district prosecution unit. He decided to retract the indictments against five extreme right-wing activists who participated in a pogrom in the neighborhood of Jabel Mukabbar two years ago, considering “the fact that it was a gathering that did not rise to the level of a riot and considering the public atmosphere after the criminal attack at the Merkaz Harav yeshiva.”

Footage of the event broadcast by the media clearly shows right-wing demonstrators, some armed with knives and clubs, beating police and pelting Palestinian cars and homes with stones. Following the event senior police officers said they were surprised by “the severity of the riots. It was a very harsh and very violent entry… they used stones, firecrackers, anything.” A senior police officer was quoted as saying “it is not clear how the Jerusalem district command allowed an illegal event to deteriorate to such a level. It is an assault against an innocent population.”

Whereas the Jerusalem police does not see fit to exhaust the proceedings against the Kahanist rioters, dozens of Sheikh Jarrah demonstrators are being charged with rioting because they sat on a dead-end street in front of a police barrier preventing them from holding a legal protest. It is evident, therefore, that according to the district officers the offense of rioting does not depend on the actions of the demonstrators but on the message they are carrying.

With its illegal actions and discriminatory behavior, the Jerusalem police under the command of Cmdr. Aharon Franco has become an armed militia in the service of a nationalist ideology. The Franco police is single-handedly undermining the moral and political legitimacy on which it relies as a policing force. As residents of Jerusalem and citizens of Israel we can no longer recognize the authority of the district police that acts as a political party and not as an arm of law enforcement; at least not until there is a thorough examination of its behavior and the fundamental distortions in the district are corrected.

By Avner Inbar

It is becoming increasingly hard to talk about Jerusalem without clichés. Israeli politicians have been peddling sentimental platitudes for so long that even the most accurate and incisive criticisms sound hackneyed.

No, Jerusalem is not a unified city: Jewish Jerusalemites never venture into the east side and Palestinian Jerusalemites rarely set foot in the west side. The school systems are separate and far from equal; public transportation is entirely segregated; one would be hard pressed to find commercial ties or cultural exchanges across the east-west divide. Indeed, the story of Jerusalem is a tale of two cities.

But Israeli politicians have long ago found out that the truth cannot do as much for their careers as intoxicating myths. And so celestial Jerusalem, unified and eternal Jerusalem, Jerusalem of gold, superseded earthly Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state. So powerful is this myth that it can justify practically anything: decades of political stagnation, systematic discrimination and above all, the creeping dispossession of Palestinians.

Underlying this tragedy is a single, tiny, word: ours. It is this possessive pronoun which animates Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s belligerent rhetoric, which guides Mayor Nir Barkat’s decision to demolish 22 houses in Silwan in favor of the fictional “King’s Garden,” and which led the courts to authorize the eviction of four Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah.

At its core, the dispute in Sheikh Jarrah boils down to an infuriating asymmetry in the right to say “ours.” At the heart of this story are 28 Palestinian families who fled their houses in what is now Israel during the 1948 war. Arriving in Jordanian east Jerusalem after the war, these families were offered an opportunity to rebuild their lives. The Jordanian government and UNRWA gave them plots of land in an empty field in Sheikh Jarrah in exchange for their refugee cards.

After Israel’s occupation of east Jerusalem in 1967, these resettled refugees discovered that a Jewish organization claims ownership of their houses based on deeds dating from the 19th century. But when the Palestinian families presented the same kind of deeds to their pre-’48 properties, they found out that the right to say “ours” is ethnically biased. As a result, four of these families were thrown into the street, and 24 more await a similar fate.

BUT THE human aspect tells only half the story. For behind the human tragedy lurks a larger political program, the plan for the “Judaization” of east Jerusalem. In a remarkable cooperation between state officials and secretive settlers’ organizations, Jerusalem is becoming a demographic battlefield.

Official agencies, such as the Jerusalem Municipality, weave a net of nightmarish bureaucracy around the Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem, refusing to issue building permits, demolishing illegal construction, revoking permanent residencies and eschewing responsibility for education, health and transportation. This growing obsession with changing the Jewish-Arab proportions is clearly evidenced in the proposed local outline plan (Jerusalem 2000), which actually sets demographic benchmarks for policy makers.

All the while, settlers’ organizations such as Elad, Ateret Cohanim and Nahalat Shimon work unremittingly to implant small Jewish enclaves within Palestinian neighborhoods so as to undermine any possibility for a future division of sovereignty over this manifestly divided city. More than 2,000 Jewish settlers already inhabit heavily guarded residential outposts in a ring around the Old City. They are accompanied by private security guards who become the new sheriffs in town, and use constant harassment to make the daily lives of Palestinian residents unbearable. The message is clear: Jerusalem is ours; kindly pack your bags and leave.

Discrimination and dispossession systematically pervade all aspects of life in east Jerusalem. What makes Sheikh Jarrah unique is the fact that soon after the forced evictions of Palestinian families from their homes, it became clear that many Israelis are simply not going to let this one slide.

What began in small solidarity vigils in August 2009 quickly evolved into weekly demonstrations in which hundreds, sometimes thousands, of Israelis, Jews and Arabs, renounce the occupation of east Jerusalem.

Much about this nascent protest movement is spontaneous and disorganized, but the basic principles it lays down may become the foundations for a rejuvenation of the Israeli left. In Sheikh Jarrah, reconciliation comes before peace, solidarity cuts across national identities and loyalties are formed on the basis of shared principles and mutual interests.

A peculiar mixture of reasons, real and imagined, place Jerusalem at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For years, it has been considered an insurmountable stumbling block on the way to a solution. But this is precisely where the truly subversive aspect of the Sheikh Jarrah movement comes to light. For it is at this heart of the conflict that the daily friction with the reality of segregation, domination and discrimination unmasks the deception of political rhetoric. And this rift between what one is led to believe and what one sees with one’s own eyes is a tremendous source of motivation. Jerusalem is at the heart of the conflict, and this heart is slowly opening up.

(originally published in today's Jerusalem Post)

In an unprecedented letter sent this morning, more than 40 leading Israeli jurists, academics, authors, and politicians call upon the Attorney General of Israel to investigate suspected misconduct on the part of the Jerusalem police in Sheikh Jarrah. The public letter argues that the police have broken the law numerous times, have deviated from the truth during court hearings and have violated court decisions, and that they enforce the law in a discriminatory manner. In addition, the signatories argue that this conduct may be due to illicit political bias in the police's Jerusalem district. This is one of the most severe judgements ever passed on the Israel police, and the long list of respected signatories shows that many Israelis share our concerns.

Among the signatories are three former Ministers of Education - Shulamit Aloni, Prof. Amnon Rubinstein, and Yossi Sarid - former Attorney General Michael Ben Yair, Former Knesset Speaker Avrum Burg, Israel Prize winners Professors Yehuda Bauer, Avishai Margalit, and Zeev Sternhell, and author David Grossman.  

Here's the English translation of the letter, with the full list of signatories:

To                                                                                                                    4/7/10

Mr. Yehuda Weinstein, Attorney General of Israel

 We, the undersigned, are writing to express our deep concern in the light of illegal and inequitable actions by senior officers of the Jerusalem Police in the context of the ongoing protests in Sheikh Jarrah. These actions give rise to grave doubts about the integrity of these officers' motives and decisions. Respect for the law and equality before the law are the very core of democracy, and the police, more than any other body, must be committed to maintaining these principles. It is, however, our impression that precisely those responsible for maintaining the law are systematically violating these same principles in East Jerusalem. Even worse, the repeated flaws and failings in the way the police has handled the ongoing public campaign in Sheikh Jarrah over the last few months give us reason to believe that the evident lack of equity in applying the law is rooted in political bias.

 The events of recent months in East Jerusalem clearly reveal that the District Police has been acting illegally and in violation of decisions by the courts when the latter are not to their liking. For example, despite repeated rulings by the courts to the effect that the protest vigils in the neighborhood are legal, in practice the police close off the neighborhood to activists from the left while at the same time allowing right-wing activists to carry out provocative, and at times violent, political actions on a wide scale. Moreover, court orders banning Palestinians and left-wing activists from the area are strictly enforced, while the police turn a blind eye when such orders are blatantly violated by right-wing activists.

 Despite the fact that hundreds of Palestinians and a small number of Jews are living in the disputed area of Sheikh Jarrah, the Jerusalem Police invariably relates to the neighborhood as if it were entirely Jewish. In their official correspondence and in their testimonies in court, the police insist on referring to the disputed area as the "Neighborhood of Shimon Hatsadik," although no such neighborhood exists in Jerusalem. This symbolic gesture alone reveals a political stance that goes far beyond the legal authority of the Jerusalem Police and helps explain the behavior of the police in the area and in the courts.

 Over the last months the Jerusalem Police have carried out a number of clearly illegal acts in the course of the legal demonstrations in Sheikh Jarrah. First of all, there have been large-scale illegal arrests and acts of physical violence directed against the demonstrators. What is more, in attempting to justify their actions, the representatives of the police have at times strayed far from the truth in their testimonies in court.  We need hardly stress the consequent, severe damage to justice itself and the danger this represents for the stability and credibility of the justice system in Israel.

 All the above suggest both a political bias and serious flaws in the modus operandi of the Jerusalem Police. There is no need to expand further on the seriousness of this claim. In any case, we have detailed proof of illegal acts and of the discriminatory policy of the Jerusalem Police.

 In the light of the above, we request that you convene an urgent meeting with us so that we can present you with these facts. We believe that an examination of the facts will convince you of the necessity to undertake a thorough examination of the Jerusalem District Police. There is an urgent need for an immediate official directive, followed by continuous supervision, in order to keep the Jerusalem Police within the bounds of impartial, and legal, modes of action.

 Prof. Bernard Avishai             Boaz Ukon                              Prof. Yaron Ezrahi

Prof. Sidra Ezrahi                   Shulamit Aloni                        Prof. Arie Arnon

Prof. Yehuda Bauer                Avraham Burg                        Prof. Ruth Butler

Prof. Yoram Bilu                    Michael Ben-Yair        Prof. Gershon Ben-Shachar   

Prof. Hanoch Gutfreund         David Grossman                Prof. Miri Gur Arie

Zehava Galon                          Prof. Yitzhak Gal-Nur            Prof. Haim Ganz

Prof. Ariel Hirschfeld             Prof. Ruth Hacohen              Prof. Moshe Halbertal

Prof. Alon Harel                     Prof. Michal Zmora Cohen     Prof. Joseph Zeira

Prof. Hanan Hever                  Prof. Naomi Chazan              Prof. Yossi Yonah

Atty. Shlomo Cohen               Ronit Matalon                         Rabbi Michael Melchior

Prof. Yakov Metzer                Prof. Avishai Margalit          Eti Livni

Prof. Ram Frost                      Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer   Judith Karp

Prof. Frances Raday           Prof. Amnon Rubinstein         Moshe (Mossi) Raz

Prof. Tamar Rappaport          Tzali Reshef                            Prof. David Shulman

Prof. Zeev Sternhell                 Prof. Yehuda Shenhav        Yossi Sarid

Mayor defends plan to raze Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem

Ha'aretz June 22, 2010

"Settlers threaten to forcibly evict East Jerusalem Palestinians”

Ha'aretz June 23, 2010

"Jerusalem master plan: Expansion of Jewish enclaves across the city"

Ha'aretz June 28, 2010

"Sheikh Jarrah construction started despite tensions in Silwan".

JPost, June 29,2010

History relates that while Ancient Rome burned the Emperor Nero played on his lyre. One historian even related that there were rumours that Nero had some of the fires set, in order to facilitate his vision of a new and improved Rome.

Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat boasts of all the festivals and cultural accomplishments that he is enlightening Jerusalem with. As he and his settler allies kindle and fan the flames in East Jerusalem, and pursue their plans to "Judaize" the Palestinian neighbourhoods, Barkat will applaud himself with grand speeches at the festivals.

What does Barkat care if he destroys any chance for peace, expels people from their homes and create chaos and violence throughout the city, and perhaps the entire Middle East.

In the coming days and weeks Sheikh Jarrah activists will be wherever necessary in order to douse the flames – In Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah, we'll be there. When Barkat flaunts himself at the festivals we'll be waiting for him to give him a clear message –

"No to Jewish Settlements in East Jerusalem" and "Stop the expulsions of Palestinians"

This Friday at 4PM we'll be back in Sheikh Jarrah.

We will continue to keep a presence in Silwan in order to stop the settlers.

http://www.en.justjlm.org/?p=129

And we will confront Barkat at various places around the city in the near future

(details to follow).

Please come and join the fire brigade.

Not the caves at Kiryat Shmona, not the dance bars of Tel Aviv—Israel’s best kept secret just may be Dahmash. Sandwiched between Lidd and Ramle, nestled alongside the train tracks and a scrap-metal junkyard, and just five minutes from Ben-Gurion International Airport, Dahmash is one of Israel’s hundreds of unrecognized villages.

The village consists of 70 homes built on private Palestinian-owned land, inhabited by about 600 Palestinians. These include refugees from Ashkelon and Be’er Sheba and native Dahmash residents going back several generations.

But the land is zoned as an agricultural area, so its residents are unrecognized, A neighboring plot (a bit further away from the junkyard) recently had its agricultural status changed, enabling the approval of a new real estate development of 900 units intended for Jewish Israelis.

Meanwhile, Dahmash’s legal efforts to be recognized—paying taxes zealously, even drawing up an urban plan themselves—have all been ignored by the authorities. So the village faces demolition by the state.

Kind of remind you of Sheikh Jarrah? Whether evictions or demolitions, it reminded us too. So on Sunday, over a hundred Sheikh Jarrah activists joined a similar number from Dahmash for a successful joint demonstration along the main road, followed by a performance by the hip-hop group Dam.

Sheikh Jarrah activists in solidarity with Dahamash residents

Aside from fearing the destruction of their village, Dahmash residents have no roads, and their Israeli ID cards have no addresses, which leads to unnecessary arrests of villagers by police. They have no mailboxes, no garbage disposal or sewage, and little electricity. As in East Jerusalem, where there is a shortage of over 1,000 classrooms, Dahmash has no local school and the neighboring towns have fought hard not to have Dahmash children enroll.

As far as the authorities are concerned, says Arafat, the head of the Dahmash Popular Committee, “There is no Dahmash, there are no Arabs. The system treats us as if we don’t exist.”

Since April, demolition orders have been handed down for 13 of the homes. On an early morning in 2007, police occupied the entire village, and emptied and demolished four homes.

“It came time for the kids to go to school,” said Arafat. “And I watched them sift through all their belongings on the ground. They were looking for their backpacks.”

More demolitions were scheduled for this month, but Dahmash has managed to push the court hearing back to July 14. Until then, we will continue returning to Dahmash, and villagers will join us this Friday in Sheikh Jarrah.

“There are 1.2 million Arabs [in Israel],” said Arafat. “Are they going to disappear? And 6 million Jews. Are they going to disappear?

“We have to live together. Not as occupiers and occupied: as equals.”

Just as we will not be silent in Sheikh Jarrah, we will not let Dahmash remain hidden behind the legal and physical garbage the state has thrown upon it. From Sheikh Jarrah to Dahmash, we will continue banging the drums of alarm. You will not be able to say you didn’t know.

Sheikh Jarrah activist Yosefa Raz wrote an inspiring piece for Zeek Journal.

It's a terrific introduction to what the Sheikh Jarrah movement is all about, and it's right... here.

A few dozen actvisits marched from Damascus Gate to Sheikh Jarrah, and held a protest vigil opposite the Sabbach family house - whose eviction is next in line. The police reacted with its usual contempt for the law and order the vigil to disperse without legal grounds. The activists joined the hundreds of demonstrators who were already convened in the Sheikh Jarrah park.

Please consider donating to the Sheikh Jarrah movement.

"Protests in an East Jerusalem neighborhood are reviving the Israeli left", say Rachel Shabi in her report from Sheikh Jarrah for Tablet Magazine.

Read it here.

The following is a partial translation of a letter circulated among the Sheikh Jarrah activists on May 30th.  Please recall that these legal procedures put a tremendous financial burden on the activists - a burden they cannot carry alone. Please consider making a donation today.

On Sunday, May 30th, Judge Eilata Ziskind of the Jerusalem Magistrate's court delivered her ruling in the case of the 14 protestors arrested during the May 14th demonstration. Ziskind's ruling stipulates that the arrestees, many of whom are pivotal activists cherry-picked by police officers on the ground, will be prohibited from entering Shiekh Jarrah, and, moreover, prohibited from taking part in any protest concerning Sheikh Jarrah, for a duration of 5 months. By doing so, the court has sided unequivocally with the Jerusalem police, joining in its efforts to suppress and break the struggle. Yet as in previous suppression attempts, the police's actions will only empower the Sheikh Jarrah movement, and bring more people to stand with us each week. 

In the face of this new challenge, we shall move forward with the only response we can offer: solidarity. Solidarity with our Palestinian partners, against the attempt to forcibly "Judaize" their neighborhood and expel them from their homes; solidarity with our arrested friends against the attempt to silence their protest; solidarity with our fellow citizens who wish to live in a democratic society in which the same laws apply to everyone. We know that discriminatory enforcement of  laws undermines their very legitimacy.

In the name of solidarity, we call on all of you to attend the demonstration in the neighborhood this coming Friday, and stand together, delivering a clear message to the Magistrates' Court and the settler police: You will not suppress our popular dissent !

Now is the time for all of us to come together, invite friends and join in, standing shoulder to shoulder against the corruption of the law enforcement systems, in which the cancer of occupation has metastasized.

Friday, 16:00, Sheikh Jarah. We call on you to join us. Further details will be circulated in the coming days.

Sincerely,
Sheikh Jarah Activists