5:31 pm
An Israeli appeals court recently upheld a decision by a lower court to evict Palestinian squatters living rent-free on Jewish-owned land in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah/Shimon HaTzadik. Although the debate surrounding the property dates back many years, the issue this week exploded into the limelight as Palestinians for several nights on end clashed with Israeli police and Jewish residents of the area.
Most major media outlets were quick to adopt the Palestinian narrative that the real estate dispute between private parties was somehow linked to alleged attempts by Israel to “Judaize” Jerusalem and simultaneous riots by tens of thousands of Arabs on Temple Mount and near the Old City’s Damascus Gate. In reality, though, the situation in Sheikh Jarrah/Shimon HaTzadik is unrelated and highly complex, as demonstrated by the fact that the case has been working its way through the courts for decades. In fact, several Palestinian tenants of a few buildings in question acknowledged under oath as far back as the 1980s that the property was indeed owned by Jews.