The Israeli Supreme Court has
weighed in on the issue
of Palestinians being evicted from
their homes in East Jerusalem, in
the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
Israeli settlers have been
attempting to push them out of
their homes in order to take over
those properties.
But this case,
in the Israeli Supreme Court, has
been lagging following the violence
that broke out a few months ago.
Now, the court has weighed in and
unfortunately, it is not positive.
The Israeli Supreme Court offered
a deal to four of the Palestinian
families facing eviction.
They could stay in their homes for
now, if they begin paying rent to
a Jewish settlement organization,
which claims ownership over
the disputed properties.
The Palestinian families rejected
the deal, insisting they
were the legal owners.
And by the way,
they are not the only one insisting
that they are the legal owners,
the international community, with
the exception of the United States,
also says that they are the legal
owners.
In fact,
the international community argues
that pushing these Palestinians out
of their homes could amount to
a possible war crime.
The United Nations has described
the planned evictions
as a possible war crime.
So, the families understandably
have rejected that offer
because the idea of paying rent for
a property that you own,
especially paying rent to people
who don't own that property is
crazy, which is absolutely crazy..
>> Okay, so
there's a ton of issues here.
First of all, if you think, well,
maybe it's rational.
I mean, here, some of these guys
have deeds from 80 years ago or
120 years ago or so.
Let me defeat that in a couple of
different ways.
One is well,
if you go back 120 years,
empire own everything, so, okay,
now, you all now owe me rent.
You see how absurd that is?
Of course, it's absurd, right?
And so, but now,
even more to the point here,
wait a minute, Palestinians had
homes in Israel when the world is
now Israel proper, right?
And they were driven out in 1948
and through some other wars.
So, if Israel is going to apply
this principle uniformly, then they
would accept the Palestinian deeds
and go okay, now, all these
Israelis, you now owe them rent,
you owe the Palestinians rent.
By the way,
you owe them background too.
And by the way,
it's actually their house.
Now, are they going to do that?
No, they're not going to do that.
They're only doing it to
the Palestinians.
That's called bigotry, flat out.
So, in this case, they say if
you're a Jewish Israeli because
the Arab Israelis, I don't believe
are in anybody else's homes,
they're in their own homes, they're
the ones that stayed, right?
So in this particular case,
if you're a Jewish Israeli,
you don't have to pay rent.
You never have to return the homes
that you took.
Just take it, who cares?
Just steal it, right?
That's one way of framing it.
And but if you're a Palestinian,
no, that's it.
It's actually our property and
you owe me rent.
Now, does anybody
think that's fair?
No, the whole rest of the world
agrees that's not fair, except for
Israel and America, led by right
wing governments going with.
Yes, Joe Biden's government is
a right wing government
that supports the right
wing government of Israel,
and says, I don't care what's fair.
I don't care about the Palestinians
and their damn rights.
I want to do bigotry.
You're Muslim, give me rent.
You're Jewish Israeli,
you're free to go.
And so, it's not right.
>> I mean, it kind of reminds me of
what cartels do with businesses in
Latin American countries, right?
They show up, and it's like,
you got a cute little business
going down here that you own,
that you work hard on.
Go ahead and give me a cut of that
every single month.
I mean, it's ridiculous.
And again,
the international community clearly
disagrees with this.
It's just the United States and
the Israeli government that thinks
it makes sense to push Palestinians
out of the homes that they own.
And in this case,
the Israeli court is arguing that
they should pay rent to the very
individuals who are trying to push
them out of their homes.
Now, Mohammed al-Kurd is one of
the activists on the ground.
He's gone viral,
thanks to the cable news interviews
that he's done on this very issue.
And he spoke to Democracy Now
about the recent offer by
the Israeli Supreme Court.
Let's hear what he has to say.
The court hearing the Israeli
colonial Supreme Court was any
other hearing we've had, except for
the massive amount
of press outside the court hall.
Well, essentially, what happened is
that we were in a courtroom that
was speaking only in Hebrew and
we did not speak Hebrew.
Most of us that live in
Sheikh Jarrah cannot speak Hebrew.
So we are there playing a game
of broken telephone, trying to
decipher what is being said.
But we understood that
the Supreme Court is evading its
responsibilities.
The court is really aware of
the international media frustrated
even explicitly made a remark about
the media pressure,
and so they wanted to reach us,
quote unquote, diplomatic solution.
And so they're evading
their responsibilities,
pressuring us to reach a settlement
with the settlers instead.
Now, the way this is being reported
or the way this is being conveyed
might sound like a good deal, but
what's happening here is that
we would be living at the mercy of
settlers, paying rent to live in
our own homes, and dealing with all
kinds of arbitrary policies.
I imagine I don't,
I personally don't love the idea
of having a landlord, let alone
having a settler landlord.
>> I mean, I can't
imagine that that offer by
the Israeli Supreme Court sounded
good to anyone, right?
>> But the reason he says that Ana
is because the press is off
as always, has been awful.
Every almost, every outlet has
framed it as Palestinians reject
offer.
>> Well, let's go to the BBC
headline because I think this is
a perfect example of the framing
that you're referring to.
The BBC headline on the story was
Sheikh Jarrah, Palestinians reject
offer to end evictions threat.
Putting the onus
on the Palestinians, right?
They're just being unreasonable,
they're rejecting this offer and
what could we do?
They had to be evicted.
Now, it hasn't come to that yet,
but this kind of framing kind of
primes people to think that way,
and that's why it's so incredibly
irresponsible to frame it this way.
>> Okay, so look, what is counter
framing, which is also factual?
Israel offers up war crimes as
a solution for housing.
Well, that's true.
The international community think
it's a war crime to try
to take these peoples homes or
to charge them rent.
By the way, another point
that should be pointed out there is
yeah, if you're at the mercy of the
settlers, the settlers are the most
extreme, and they want to drive
these people from East Jerusalem so
they can annex East Jerusalem.
They care less about the particular
house or the rent than
they do about the occupation.
And so you think they're going to
be reasonable about the rent?
You think they're going to come and
fix the plumbing?
No, they're not
going to do any of that.
They're obviously going to drive
them from their homes because
they're settlers, and
that's what they want to do.
That's their stated mission
objective.
They're not hiding it, right?
So this is an incredibly fair
headline would be,
get Israel makes absurd offer that
would further occupation.
Instead, they are making it seem
like Israel offered something and
the Palestinian rejected it.
As usual, can you believe it?
They don't want to pay rent in
their own home, and they want to do
a settlement with the settlers who
want to do ethnic cleansing of
them, outrageous the Palestinians.
>> Yeah, it makes it seems,
as though, the Palestinian families
aren't doing what's necessary to
avoid eviction.
And so, again, that framing it's
just, it's irresponsible and it
spreads this thought process that.
Unfortunately, incredibly unfair to
the Palestinian families who again,
are dealing with settlers who
are trying to push them out of
the homes that they have the right
to live in peacefully.
Did you have >> Yeah,
I just want to say one
last thing about this.
Look, the only reason I brought up
religion in this particular case is
because by their own land logic,
the Israelis would be legalizing
bigger threat in this case, right?
And so, is Jews and
Muslims relocated?
Yeah, Young Turks were started
by Muslims,
we can definitely work together.
And of course, that's happened all
across America, and
Jews were heroic in standing up for
Muslims during the Muslim ban in
the Trump era here in America.
But in this case, you should not
be in favor of legalized bigotry.
And by the way, it doesn't help
the Israeli cause, because then,
there's the right of return.
So by your own logic,
the Palestinians would have every
right to all that land,
within Israel proper.
And when you go to peace
settlement, if you ever do,
you couldn't say no,
you have no right to return.
Well, you just charge them rent
because of that same exact
philosophy, >> Right.
>> So it is counterproductive
in every way imaginable.