Blue Boxes and Upcoming Expulsions:
Remember dropping pennies into those blue JNF boxes in your synagogue and JCC growing up?
In 7 days from now, on November 28th, the pennies dropped into those blue boxes- and the JNF under the guise of “Himnuta”- will begin the process of expelling a Palestinian family, the Sumarin family, from their home in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.
For more background, see Nir Hasson’s Haaretz article.
What is Himnuta?
Check out this blog, which includes the following: “The JNF established Himnuta in the 1930s, mainly to circumvent legal restrictions on its own land dealings. For instance, Himnuta can buy lands as an investment or exchange lands with Arab dealers, both of which are forbidden for the JNF.”
Over the past few decades, Himnuta has purchased and continues to purchase territory over the green line.
Another creepy settler organization. What’s the big deal?
The big deal is this: Himnuta is not an independent company. Himnuta is part of the JNF.
How is that possible? The JNF’s policy is that is doesn’t buy land over the green line.
Exactly. The JNF is a United Nations NGO that has a “4-star rating from Charity Navigator” and “earned the Better Business Bureau seal of approval.” As such, the JNF does not want to be perceived as a extremist, right wing organization responsible for the expulsion of Palestinian families in the some of the most sensitive points of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Thus, they carry out their more shady dealings through Himnuta.
Search the word “Himnuta” on the JNF’s website and you will find zero results. Search the word Himnuta on Israel’s Company Registrar, and you will find a company whose offices are located in the JNF’s Jerusalem headquarters. You will see that out of Himnuta’s 30,000,000 company shares, 30,000,000 of them are owned by the JNF. You will see that the head of Himnuta, David Lazarus, also serves as KKL-JNF’s CFO.
Himnuta is the JNF.
So what’s the story with the Sumarin house in Silwan?
In summary, the case is as follows: This house belongs to a Palestinian family. Twelve members of the family currently live in the house, including five children, a pregnant mother, and a grandfather on dialysis. The house is directly inside the City of David National Park, next to the visitor center run by ELAD (explained below).
The short version is this: the Israeli government exploited the factthat in 1983, when the original homeowner, Musa Sumarin, died, thepeople living in the house were not deemed by the state to be thedirect “heirs.” Therefore, the government transferred ownership of thehouse to the Custodian of Absentee Properties.
Fast forward to 1991, when the Custodian transferred the Sumarinproperty, along with seven other properties in Silwan, to JNF/Himnutain exchange for land in Wadi Ara.
Wadi Ara? How is Wadi Ara connected?
It’s not really. Here’s yet another level of crooked, subtle politics: The Israeli government can’t just take control of property in East Jerusalem and say that it is for sale to Jews only. Even if that’s their intent, they knew/know that wouldn’t look good.
The JNF/Himnuta, on the other hand, according to its mandate, can take control of property with the intent “for those properties to be under Jewish ownership.” (see here).
So the government enacted a deal in Wadi Ara [largely symbolic, in my interpretation], and transferred the properties in Silwan to Himnuta/JNF.
Then what?
All sorts of complicated legal proceedings throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, about which you can read more in the 2005 Haaretz article by Amiram Barkat, or in Hagit’s blog. In short, the intent of the legal proceedings was this: once the properties were soundly in the hands of Himnuta/JNF, they would be transferred to Jews, most likely through ELAD, the extremist settler organization responsible for Jewish settlement in Silwan and in control of the City of David. (For more background on ELAD, see the alternative archeology group Emek Shaveh’s page on ELAD). ELAD is an incredibly complex and important player in Silwan, but for the purpose of keeping this discussion on point (the JNF and the Sumarin House), and narrow, let’s use the simple equation: ELAD=Powerful Settler Organization Bent on De-Arabizing Silwan.
Now, this is not officially documented, whatever that means, but I think it’s pretty clear what JNF/Himnuta will do with the property after expelling the Sumarin family. They have transferred properties to ELAD in the past, and, again, the Sumarin house is directly inside the City of David National Park, next to the visitor center run by ELAD. As Attorney and expert on Jerusalem Danny Seidemann wrote to me in an email:
“Virtually all of the JNF/Himnuta lands in the Wadi Hilweh section of Silwan – almost 1/3 of the total area – have been handed over covertly to the settler organization ELAD. On May 5, 1998, senior JNF/Himnuta official Avraham Halleli testified before the Jerusalem District Court:
“To the best of my knowledge, all of the JNF areas [in Silwan] were leased by the ILA to the ELAD Association…it is the lands policies of JNF… that [its lands] be leased to Jews for the purposes of Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel.”
So will the Sumarin house be transferred to ELAD? probably there is a 99% chance. But you can make your own assumptions.
So does Himnuta “legally” own the Sumarin house?
The method was/is as follows:
Settlers (ELAD) initiate declaration of “Absentee Property”à Property is transferred to the [Israeli Government’s] Development Authorityà Property is transferred to JNF/Himnutaà Property is transferred to the settlers (ELAD).
The use of the Absentee Property Law in East Jerusalem, while technically within the government’s “legal” purvey, is extremely controversial. Following Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967, according to Ir Amim, “then-Attorney General Meir Shamgar issued an opinion that there was no justification to apply the Absentee Property Law to East Jerusalem. As a rule, the State of Israel rarely applied that law to the annexed territory; this policy changed in 1977 at the initiative of then-Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon, and also during the 1980s when used in East Jerusalem, especially in the Old City and the neighborhood of Silwan.”
In short, the very decision to apply the Absentee Property Law in Silwan in 1991 was extremely controversial, and, in my opinion, highly immoral. The Sumarin family lives in a house that they built, prior to 1967. What possible reason is there to justify the property being transferred to the Custodian of the Absentee Properties, other than the then [and now] Right-Wing Israeli Government’s and ELAD’s shared goal to “Judaize (ie. De-Arabize) East Jerusalem?”
Even if we bracket the questionable moral status of the Absentee Property Law as applied in East Jerusalem, “all these properties,” writes Danny Seidemann, “should have been placed at the disposal of the public at large, both Jewish and Arab, in the framework of an equal, fair and transparent tender process. They were not.”
What is important is this:
This is an extremely important issue, both in humanitarian terms and in political terms. The family has been living there for decades, they have nowhere else to go. If they are expelled from their house, and ELAD takes over, that will set the tone of the houses in Silwan. This is the first time in five years that there will be an expulsion in Silwan, which is a point of extreme tension, is close to the Old City and Al-Aqsa, and has been the site of much violence and clashes in the past.
This expulsion could ignite the dormant tensions in Silwan.
But more certainly that igniting violence, if this expulsion is carried out, it will be a sign to the settlers, ELAD, the government (and, in this case, the JNF/Himnuta) that they can expel Palestinian families from their houses in Silwan, near the City of David, without too much international outcry/pressure/opposition. And if they can, they will.
On 11/28, we are joining the residents of Silwan in their struggle –
and stopping the eviction!
1. Protest vigil in Silwan: This coming Friday, 11/25, at 12:30 PM
We will stand in solidarity with the residents of Silwan, in a struggle against the expulsion of the Sumarin family from their house. The vigil will take place next to the Sumarin house, which is directly next door to the Visitor Center of the City of David, run by ELAD.
From more information, call Dorit: 0525596500
2. Upcoming tours:
Monday, 11/28: Transport from Jerusalem: at 18:30 from the Aroman Cafe on Mount Scopus, by Hebrew U. Transport from Tel Aviv: At 15:30 from Masof El Al.
Thursday, 1/12: Transport from Jerusalem: 18:30 from the parking lot of Gan HaPaamon (the Bell Garden).
For more information and to sign up, call Zvi: 0524718490 or email him atzvibenninga@gmail.com
3. Help with the 24-hour vigils in the Sumarin House. The vigils will begin on 11/28.
To sign up call Moriel 0543157781 or Maya at 0528701145, or email Moriel him at moriel18@gmail.com.
This isn’t surprising in itself – the JNF has actively pursued the ‘Judaization’ of many parts of Israel, expropriating Palestinian lands. However, the existence of a secretive company that supports the deepening of the occupation in East Jerusalem is worth bringing to the attention of donors who probably think they’re doing something nice for the environment and the Jewish people at the same time.
This is yet another demonstration of the fact that the JNF is an important part of the regime of privileges that allows one ethnic group to realize its rights at the expense of another ethnic group, through theft, dispossession, and flat out violence. It should be dismantled, together with the Jewish Agency and other arms of this regime.
I remember our rabbis in the US telling us how important the blue boxes were and how great it was that Israel is putting these facts on the ground… fast forward from the 1970s and 80s to 2011 and one learns this is all a lie and the rabbis too were lied to by the high priests of Israel is right at the expense of universal and Jewish values…
For info about the Stop the JNF Campaign, see http://stopthejnf.org/. UK readers can lobby their MP to sign Early Day Motion 1677 – go to http://coordin8.org.uk/app/index.php.
The text of the EDM reads:
“That this House welcomes the Stop the Jewish National Fund (JNF) Campaign launched on 30 March 2011 by the Palestinian Boycott National Committee, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign and others to inform the public about the JNF – Karen Kayemet L’Yisrael, its ongoing illegal expropriation of Palestinian land, concealing of destroyed Palestinian villages beneath parks and forests, and prevention of refugees from returning to their homes; notes that the JNF’s constitution is explicitly discriminatory by stating that land and property will never be rented, leased or sold to non-Jews; further notes that the UN rejected the JNF USA’s application for consultative status with the Economic and Social Council on the ground that it violates the principles of the UN Charter on Human Rights; regrets that the Prime Minister is a JNF honorary patron; and believes that there is just cause to consider revocation of the JNF’s charitable status in the UK.”
I do not understand how Wadi Ara, which I know as an area with a large Arab population in Israel and a fair distance from Jerusalem, fits into the picture. While I understand that there is a settlement campaign going on in East Jerusalem to “Judaize” many areas now Arab, there are many questions this report left unanswered. For instance, when the decision was made that the current residents of the house were not “direct descendents,” were they still related to the decaeased owner of the property? I get the same feeling I have when watching a street game of 3-card monte.