Middle East Report Online: Confronting Settlement Expansion in East Jerusalem by Joel Beinin

Confronting Settlement Expansion in East Jerusalem
Joel Beinin

February 14, 2010

(Joel Beinin is Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History at Stanford University and a contributing editor of Middle East Report.)

The neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, a 20-minute walk up the hill from the Damascus Gate to the Old City of Jerusalem, has become the focal point of the struggle over the expanding project of Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

In the first week of February a settler in Sheikh Jarrah attacked a young boy from an Arab family evicted so that Jewish activists could move in. The al-Ghawis were displaced in August 2009, and since then they have been living in front of their former home in a tent, refusing to move in protest of the eviction. Settlers have gone after them more than once. On this occasion, an older al-Ghawi, Nasir, was beaten and menaced with an M-16 by a settler when he attempted to protect the young boy. Police arrived on the scene and disarmed the settler. But they also served Nasir with a restraining order forbidding him to enter Sheikh Jarrah for 15 days. Then the police destroyed the al-Ghawis’ tent. The makeshift abode was rebuilt, but the next day police and municipal officials came to the site and threatened to dismantle it a second time.

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