From the AP and NY Times accounts in the Santa Fe New Mexican you’d reasonably believe that (1) the current Hamas-Israel war and destruction was caused by impending evictions of Arabs living in the east Jerusalem nieghborhood knowns as Sheik Jarrah to Arabs and Shimon HaTzadik to Jews because of Israel’s expansionist aims, (2) that the Palestinian – right-wing Jewish riots in Jerusalem that have now spread to Lod, Holon, and elsewhere in Israel was because of the police attempting to clear the Temple Mount, and (3) That Hamas entered the war in retaliation for Israeli aggression against it. None of these allegations are true. There are at least three things going on at once with the current conflicts.
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Sheik Jarrah / Shimon HaTzadik Neighborhood
This area was purchased by Jews from Arab owners in 1876. It was purchased to include the Tomb of Simon the Just (שִׁמְעוֹן הַצַדִּיק) with an adjacent 18 dunams. Since then this land has been owned by Jews without title dispute, until more recently when Palestinians have made dubious claims about to be ruled on by the Israeli Supreme Court. It was not known as the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood until after 1948, when the land was taken over by invading Jordanian forces.
While the technicalities of what happened to the land can be found in an excellent summary by CAMERA (see here), here’s an abstract:
(1) This is a private civil suit between Jewish land owners and Arab tenants. The Israeli government is not a party to the dispute. As opposed to what the wire services have alleged, this is not a widespread conspiracy of the Israeli government to remove Arabs from their homes and take over more Arab land.
(2) The Arab tenants who have been living on the land have, under an agreement signed in 1982, been accorded “protected tenant” status where so long as they pay rent they and their heirs can stay in their houses on the land. This agreement also acknowledged that the ownership was Jewish.
(3) Not all of the tenants are involved in the dispute; only about 31 families apparently are not paying rent. These non-paying rent tenants stopped paying rent shortly after the agreement was signed as a political statement at the urging of the Palestinian Liberation Organization for propaganda reasons.
(4) Israel has a similar Custodian of Absentee Property for Arab land. They sold most of the abandoned property to state or related bodies for public purposes and have held the value of the property in trust for the registered owners, who can apply for compensation. Many did not apply under pressure from the Palestine Liberation Organization or later the Palestinian Authority, perhaps because it could imply legitimacy of Israel’s existence and sovereignty. Even so, over time according to CAMERA’s detailed report “at least 14,692 claims have been filed” related to 200,000 dunams of land. More than 10 million NIS in cash, and 54,000 dunams of replacement land in Israel have been paid in compensation.
The media claiming the causal link between Sheik Jarrah and Hamas’ sending rockets into Israel is spurious at best. Even today (May 16) the New Mexican carried the Associated Press allegations that, “The latest outbreak of violence began in east Jerusalem last month, when Palestinian protests and clashes with police broke out in response to Israeli police tactics during Ramadan and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers.” (underline added). This perpetuates a false narrative that this is a land grab by Israel. It is not.
Note that this civil suit has been around since approximately 1972, working its way through the courts. Some of the original disputants started paying rent again and are not the object of the suit. There is nothing precipitous about its finally being resolved, except that the Israeli Supreme Court was just about to rule when the riots on the Temple Mount started.
2. The Temple Mount Riots
As noted just above, the AP claims that “The latest outbreak of violence began in east Jerusalem last month, when Palestinian protests and clashes with police broke out in response to Israeli police tactics during Ramadan…”
Again, this is false as stated. The riots began after Palestinians stockpiled rocks in the Al Aqsa mosque, and then began throwing them at police and down on Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall. These were very harmful, large rocks, not little pebbles (which can be harmful in themselves). We’ve seen this before. In order to regain order the police attempted to settle things on the Temple Mount and the Arab worshippers attacked them with rocks and fireworks. As Ha’aretz, a small circulation newspaper not particularly favorable toward Israeli government actions, reported on May 8:
Some 70,000 worshippers attended the final Friday prayers of Ramadan at Al-Aqsa, the Islamic endowment that oversees the site said. Thousands protested afterwards, waving the green flags of the Islamic militant group Hamas and chanting pro-Hamas slogans before dispersing peacefully.
Tensions boiled over after the evening prayer, when hundreds of Palestinian worshippers began hurling stones and other objects at the Israeli forces, who responded with riot gear.
Again, the media inverted the causal chain of events, falsely making the Israeli police the instigators.
3. Hamas rocket attacks were only as retaliation of Israeli strikes, and in solidarity with the oppressed Palestinians.
We’ll go into more detail after Shavuot. Suffice it to say this narrative is laughable. Hamas began firing rockets last Friday (May 7) before any Israel Air Force strikes. No one believes that Hamas is doing this to protect Palestinians – how are 2000 un-aimed rockets going to protect anyone? In fact according to IDF data, about 25-30% of all rockets launched from Gaza fall short and harm or kill Gazans themselves. Others land in Israeli-Arab towns, potentially harming fellow Arabs.
The more accurate political analysis is that Hamas is trying to take more election votes away from Fatah, and prove to Palestinians on the West Bank that they are the better leaders for the (non-existent) elections that have been “postponed” by Mahmoud Abbas, now in his 16th year of his four-year term.
The media also blindly quote the numbers of deaths and hurt, equating the few Israeli deaths and injuries against the Gazan deaths and injuries, making it appear as if Israel’s response is disproportionate. We’ve seen this before. The media don’t put into context the fact that Hamas would be happy if the deaths and injuries in Israel were higher, but they don’t have the sophisticated weaponry to avoid Iron Dome, the defensive system jointly developed by the US and Israel. Detractors of US military assistance to Israel don’t mention the lives saved by this and other systems. What would they have Israel do, stop buying defensive systems just so the numbers can be more equal?
Where does Hamas get its funds to purchase rockets, launchers, and other offensive weapons? To build its underground tunnels and above-ground drones? The rockets are built locally using Iranian technology and funding, as well as those weapons smuggled into Gaza from the Sinai, also financed primarily by Iran. Should we release billions of dollars to Iran to re-join the JCPOA (Iran Nuclear Deal) so they can give more money to Hamas? Of course not.
Take Action
As noted in our last blog, there are a number of things you can do right now to help Israel:
- Monitor the media and respond with letters to the editor and op-eds when they provide the false narratives.
- Vet those running for public office to be sure they are pro-Israel, and educate them if they are not. This is especially important for those living in the Albuquerque area – the special election for a candidate to succeed Deb Haaland in congressional district 1 is starting on Saturday with early voting. Their positions on Israel are substantially different. While Israel is not a significant issue in the CD1 race, the ABQ Journal recently released its analysis of the candidates (see here) unrelated to foreign affairs.*
- Most importantly, contact your Members of Congress (MOCs) and ask them to make public statements that they stand with Israel. How can you do this very efficiently? Text ACT to 73075. You will receive a response from AIPAC (the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) with a link that will let you contact your MOCs. If you are not already a member of AIPAC, visit aipac.org/Join and consider becoming an AIPAC member. Follow @AIPAC on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
- If you have pro-Israel friends who are not SFMEW members, recommend they sign up for our emails and action alerts. They can do this at SFMEW.org on the right hand side of the home page.
*As a reminder, SFMEW does not endorse or donate to candidates for public office.
Follow-up – UNM Israeli attacked in ABQ
Further on the Israeli UNM student attacked last weekend, the ADL and Federation have been involved in investigating and supporting the student. Scott Levin, ADL regional director, sent out an email on May 14:
Board and friends,This past week we received a report about an Israeli American student at the University of New Mexico who was the target of an alleged antisemitic attack at a party last weekend. We have not only provided support to the student, but we have also worked closely with community partners including UNM Hillel and the Jewish Federation of New Mexico, law enforcement and university officials on this case.In light of the ongoing conflict in Israel, these are particularly perilous times. People obviously have a First Amendment right to speak their views, even if they are ones with which we disagree; however, when those words are antisemitic or turn to violence, we will speak out and take action.We remain outraged and appalled by this violent attack against a student and the alleged antisemitism that prompted the attack. We strongly encouraged law enforcement to fully investigate the assault, including the allegations of antisemitism. If the evidence in the case does demonstrate that the student was attacked because of his Jewish identity, we have encouraged prosecutors to charge it as a hate crime under New Mexico law.ADL Senior Associate Director Jeremy Shaver did an excellent job of explaining the situation and our position while being interviewed about the matter by KRQE, the CBS affiliate in Albuquerque. To watch the story:
We will blog more about the internal strife going on in Israel between Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews in a later blog after Shavuot.
Chag Shavuot Sameach
SFMEW is a beneficiary of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico.