A Conflict Implies Equal Footing

Sheikh Jarrah has never been and never will be a straightforward property issue.

The inciting issue in Sheikh Jarrah is the culmination of decades of fear, discrimination, and conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. The four Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah who are now threatened with eviction by Israeli courts have been living in their respective homes since 1957.

They are refugees.

They are refugees who lost their original homes in 1948 and were resettled by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (by the way, where has the U.N. been during this recent catastrophe? If they were involved in the beginning, they should see it through to the end). There are HUNDREDS of other families facing the same situation. These eviction cases are moving up to Israel’s Supreme Court where it is assumed that the Court will decide to evict these families and give the homes to Israeli claimants. The irony however, is that the same court refuses to look at cases from Palestinians who were evicted from their homes in West Jerusalem in 1948.

This is merely one example of the endemic discrimination present throughout Israel against Palestinians. This discrimination extends to citizenship rights, education, and social services. As the Israeli government has shifted further to the right, the inequalities have become glaring.

Palestine is on the brink of extinction.

In recent years, Israeli officials have enacted policies increasing the Jewish presence in Palestinian territory while restricting Palestinian expansion. Israel has refused to categorize Palestinians as citizens, despite Palestinian Arabs making up a significant portion of Jerusalem’s population. To this day, Palestinians have little to no say in Jerusalem’s government, which means they lack the resources to fight for their rights.

Hamas, Palestine’s militant leader, has been criticized for his violent actions against Israel. Yet, those critics need to stop and consider that Palestinian officials are responding in the only way that they can. They have no voice in the Israeli government, none of the rights that are given to citizens, and no support. How can they articulate their needs when they are not given the tools to do so?

The fact of the matter is that Netanyahu’s policies against Palestine have become untenable. What is happening in Palestine is state-backed settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing. The situation in Sheikh Jarrah is not unprecedented, Israel has been gradually destroying entire Palestinian villages since 1948 and Sheikh Jarrah is simply the latest neighborhood threatened by the settler colonial project.

This is not a simple conflict- a conflict implies equal footing.