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Longtime East Jerusalem
Palestinian Family Faces Eviction


By Stephen Lendman
stephenlendman.org
8-16-17

 
Despite living in their home on their own land for 53 years, the Shamasna family faces imminent eviction by Israel - wanting their property for exclusive Jewish development and use.

Since 1967, Israel evicted over 15,000 Palestinian families from their East Jerusalem homes, plus many thousands more throughout the Territories - dispossessing them and stealing their property to house settlers illegally on their land.

Trump’s one-sided support for Israel and indifference toward Palestinian rights emboldened Netanyahu to escalate ethnic cleansing and settlement construction.

According to Ayoub Shamasna, his family exhausted all legal avenues after racist Israeli courts, including its Supreme Court, ruled against their rights, saying they had to leave their homes and land where he and his wife Fahima lived since 1964.

They’re entitled to remain, but it doesn’t matter being an Arab family in an apartheid Jewish state. The Shamasnas were told if they didn’t leave willingly, they’d be forcibly removed and charged for eviction costs - including for police and municipality workers’ pay.

Days earlier, Fahima Shamasna said “(t)hough the house isn’t more precious than martyrs, prisoners, and the injured, we won’t leave it willingly, and we will remain firm until the last moment.”

“In this house, I gave birth to my eight children and raised them. This house means a lot to us. The occupation does not want to leave us alone or give us an opportunity to settle down.”

Their son Muhammad said “(w)e were born and raised in this house, and we don’t count on the Israeli judicial system, which sided with the settlers from the beginning.”

“It’s not about our house alone, but rather all houses in Sheikh Jarrah (East Jerusalem) are being targeted for different settler projects.

Israel “wants to displace us and uproot us from the neighborhood and from the neighbors with whom we have lived for long years.”

Ayoub and Fahima remember 1948 forced displacement. They again fear becoming internal refugees late in life.

Interviewed by RT, Fahima said they have “nowhere to go” if evicted. “They take our homes and claim it is theirs,” she explained.

It’s one of countless ways a racist Jewish state oppresses unwanted Palestinians - the world community doing nothing to stop it.

Republicans and undemocratic Democrats in Washington support it.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
 
My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

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