ACTION REQUESTED TO COMBAT PALESTINIAN PROPAGANDA COMING TO SANTA FE AND ALBUQUERQUE (UNM):
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Read the information below carefully and go to some of the linked sources to get additional nuances of the Sheik Jarrah dispute.
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Write a letter to the editor or op-ed for the New Mexican or Albuquerque Journal decrying the propaganda being perpetuated by the antisemitic groups backing this speaker, and the UNM Anthropology Department for its antisemitic collaboration. (for more on how to do this go to our webpage on writing letters and op-eds: https://www.sfmew.org/how-to-write-to-the-sf-new-mexican-or-abq-journal/ .
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Attend the presentation in Santa Fe or Albuquerque and challenge El-Kurd (and likely anyone who introduces him) on the errors of his claims and allegations so the audience knows he is a dissembler.
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Call or write to Governor Michelle Lujan-Grisham (505-476-2200, or contact the governor on the website) and tell her that the Anthropology Department of UNM, a governmental institution, is hosting a speaker who is violating Executive Order 2022-118, “Adopting Working Definition of Antisemitism.”
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Email (mreviere@unm.edu) or call (505-277-7639) Mallory Reviere, Special Assistant to the the UNM Board of Regents to explain that the Anthropology Department is sponsoring an antisemitic speaker that is contrary to the Governor’s Executive Order 2022-118, “Adopting Working Definition of Antisemitism.” This should be denounced by the Board.
What is this about?
We all agree we are against “disinformation.” We protest it when it goes against our own political or worldview beliefs, but we embrace it when it includes what we want the world to accept as our narrative embedded with lies. Any way you cut it, disinformation is a type of propaganda – lies to persuade.
We just saw more Palestinian propaganda in the op-ed in the Santa Fe New Mexican by Iris Keltz (“Palestinian journalist to share family’s displacement story” September 23, 2023) related to the sponsorship of Mohammed El-Kurd by many of the anti-Zionist groups in Santa Fe: Santa Feans for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, Veterans for Peace, and the American Friends Service Committee (a Quaker organization). This op-ed was a publicity announcement for a talk being given by El-Kurd at 7:00 pm at the Santa Fe Friends Meeting House (505 Camino De Los Marquez). For those of you receiving this email who live in Albuquerque, there is also going to be a talk in Albuquerque at UNM on Sept 29 at 3:00 pm in room Anthropology 163.
As is common with propaganda, Keltz completely mischaracterizes the dispute surrounding the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem. She (and El-Kurd in his writings and public appearances) wrongly and maliciously invokes “international law,” and turns this into a political dispute as well. But in reality this was a case of property rights, not of human rights. It has nothing to do with Palestinian claims of “ethnic cleansing” or “unfair treatment.”
The facts of this dispute are clear and indisputable:
- The area now known as Sheik Jarrah was purchased by Jews from Arab owners in 1876. The geographic area includes the Tomb of Simon the Just (Shimon HaTzadik – a prominent Second Temple High Priest) and an adjacent 18 dunams (about 4.5 acres). Until 1948 the neighborhood was home to both Jewish and Arab communities. In 1948 the land was taken over by occupying Jordanian forces; any Jews remaining were forcibly expelled, and the name was changed from its original name, Shimon HaTzadik, to Sheik Jarrah. Throughout Jordanian occupation, through Israel’s re-taking the land in 1967, and even after that until 1972, there was no title dispute – this land was owned by Jews. The only discrimination related to the land was by Jordan against Jews and to the benefit of Palestinians.+
- To be clear, according to international law experts Eugene Kontorovich and Avi Bell (Wall Street Journal, May 14, 2021), “Title to the properties in dispute in Sheikh Jarrah was never given by Jordan to Palestinians, so Israeli law respects the unbroken title of the plaintiffs. This case has nothing to do with ethnicity or religion.”*
- In 1956 Jordan leased UNRWA (the UN’s Palestinian refugee organization) the vacant Jewish land to build houses for 28 Palestinian refugee families. According to the agreement (and per CAMERA’s May 13, 2021 “Sheikh Jarrah: the Facts” – emphasis added):
The refugees would agree to give up their refugee assistance and ration cards and would pay nominal rent for a probationary period of three years and three months. Those tenants who lived up to the lease terms would be allowed to sign a long-term lease of 30 years, and after that a further 33 years.
The tenants claim that under a side agreement they received title to their homes after the initial three-year period, but there is no evidence of such an arrangement, which would obviously conflict with the fact that they had to sign a lease.
In any event, there is no evidence that any of the 28 families ever gained title to the homes from Jordan or UNRWA. They were tenants paying rent.
- Since 1972 Palestinians’ dubious claims have moved their way through the Israeli judicial system over four decades. Their claim to ownership of the land or squatters rights were never proven to the court system with credible evidence. Hence Israeli courts ruled that these squatters had no legal rights to the land. But they also agreed that if the squatters had paid rent they could have “protected tenants” status, meaning they could maintain their presence on the land.
- Under an agreement signed in 1982, those Arab tenants who had been living on the land and had been paying rent were accorded “protected tenant” status, including the agreement that so long as they pay rent they and their heirs could stay in their houses on the land. This agreement also acknowledged that the ownership was Jewish.
- Of all of the families living in Sheik Jarrah, about 31 families stopped paying rent shortly after the agreement was signed, hence forfeiting their “protected tenant” status and making them subject to eviction if the landlords so desired. These families stopped paying at the urging of the Palestinian Liberation Organization for propaganda reasons.
- Like in any ordinary property dispute between private parties, families that are not paying rent are in breach of their lease and subject to eviction from their illegal occupation of the property. The facts of the case have been thoroughly examined by Israel’s Supreme Court, which often (though not always) sides with Palestinians making reasonable claims that can be confirmed with reasonable documentation such as land titles.
Palestinians can’t credibly claim that they are not able to obtain abandoned property or get compensation for land lost because of the 1948 or 1967 wars.
CAMERA reports (“Sheikh Jarrah: the Facts” May 13, 2021):
Property left behind by Arabs who fled during the fighting in 1948 (ie, absentee property) was turned over to Israel’s Custodian of Absentee Property, which sold most of the property to state or related bodies for public purposes, such as housing the hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Arab countries who found refuge in Israel. The Custodian held the value of the property in trust for the registered Arab owner (with adjustments for inflation and interest).
Those registered owners are eligible to file for compensation from the Custodian, but Palestinians were pressured not to make claims, lest that legitimize Israel’s existence and sovereignty. Still, over the years at least 14,692 claims have been filed, claims have been settled with respect to more than 200,000 dunums of land, more than 10,000,000 NIS (New Israeli Shekels) has been paid in compensation, and more than 54,000 dunums of replacement land in Israel has been given in compensation. Israel has followed this generous policy despite the fact that not a single penny of compensation has ever been paid to any of the more than 500,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries, who were forced by the Arab governments to abandon their homes, businesses and savings.
What about Mohammed El-Kurd, the coming speaker and the “Palestine Correspondent” of The Nation?
El-Kurd, not unlike other journalists who cover the Palestinian-Israel conflict, is known to distort the news by mischaracterizing, selectively choosing facts, and even taking single scenes and claiming they are the full story. One example is how El-Kurd covered the stabbing of a Jewish Israeli near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem; the Palestinian stabber was shot by Israeli police. El-Kurd’s tweet stated “Breaking: Israeli occupation forces shoot a Palestinian young man near Damascus Gate in occupied Jerusalem,” omitting the fact that the Palestinian shot had just stabbed a Jewish Israeli and was attempting to stab the policemen on the scene. The full scenario can be seen in the full video. After the Israeli government posted the full video on Twitter, and many people replied that El-Kurd had clearly mischaracterized the incident, he still refused to delete or add any information to his tweet. His tweet purposefully reversed the perpetrator and the victim, deceiving the public who subscribe to the media outlets perpetuating such lies. Again, not an uncommon propaganda act of Palestinian “journalists.”
As CAMERA states (December 10, 2021), El-Kurd is a Palestinian activist, not someone looking to report the truth:
The Society for Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics requires journalists to “Seek truth and report it”; to “provide context. Take special care care not not to to misrepresent or oversimplify in promoting, previewing or summarizing a story; to gather, update and correct information throughout the life of a news story;” and to “never deliberately distort facts or “gather, update and correct information story;” and to “never deliberately context, including visual information. El-Kurd has violated all of those imperatives. He failed to seek out the full story…The video he shared lacked context and created a grossly distorted impression, and and even when he was informed of the full story, he failed to update the information. Indeed, rather than provide more information, he tweeted, “What context justifies this? ”
The video that he did share is propaganda and incitement. It’s not news.
Prior to to being hired by by The Nation (but after contributing a few columns for the magazine), … El-Kurd, “tweeted that all Jewish settlers are ‘psychotic,’ characterized Zionism as inherently genocidal, praised an assassinated PFLP terrorist, falsely claimed that the IDF ‘tortures’ Palestinian children, and retweeted a video of the late American radical Kwame Ture (aka Stokely Carmichael) referring to Zionism as a ‘satanic‘ movement.’”
Footnotes:
+Greater details of what happened to unclaimed property, or Jewish property, after Jordan occupied Judea and Samaria is available in an excellent report by CAMERA from May 13, 2021 that you can find on their website here. For example, regarding Jewish and Arab property captured by Israel and Jordan respectively:
During the war invading Jordanian forces took Judea and Samaria, including Sheikh Jarrah and other parts of Jerusalem, and the Jews who survived the fighting had to flee. The Jordanian Custodian of Enemy Property took control of all West Bank property owned by Jews including Jewish buildings and land in Sheikh Jarrah. Incidentally, the Jordanian Custodian also took property in the West Bank that belonged to Arabs who continued to live in what became Israel, since like Israeli Jews, these Israeli Arabs were now citizens of an enemy state.
(It should be mentioned that the laws underlying the Jordanian Custodian of Enemy Property, and the similar Israeli Custodian of Absentee Property that will be discussed below, were based on inherited British Mandate law, which is why the offices had similar names and responsibilities.)
Ownership of much of the Jewish land taken by the Jordanian Custodian was transferred to the Jordanian government, which used it, for example, to construct government buildings in East Jerusalem, and to create the Dheisheh Refugee Camp – which is built entirely on Jewish-owned land. In addition, Palestinian refugee camps at Qalandia and Anata were built in part on Jewish land that had been taken by the Custodian. (See Arab Building in Jerusalem: 1967—1997, Israel Kimhi, p48-49; for Dheisheh, see also, from the leaked Palestine papers, NSU Draft Memo Re: Rights of Jews Within the OPT Acquired pre-1967.)
*See the transcript of Kontorovich’s talk to SFMEW from May 21, 2023 regarding the international law issues of “occupation”, etc.
Despite the aggravating and deceitful dissembling of the truth by the groups mentioned above and their impending antisemitic speaker, El-Kurd, we hope you had an easy fast, and will have a joyful Sukkot!