Peace Now, an Israeli organization fighting against settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, organized the demonstration outside of the Shepherd’s Hotel the night that Huckabee visited. Also present outside the hotel was a group of more than 30 fundamental settlers, countering the Peace Now protest.

Participants of the Peace Now protest held posters asking Huckabee to go home, claiming that for the Evangelist right in the United States, “heaven is perpetual war”. An interview with a Jewish Israeli expressed exactly the feeling of the crowd that night: “Governor Huckabee is welcome here if it is with the intention of working with the Israeli people towards a goal the majority agrees on: peace. He is not welcome if it is to support the extreme-right minority, who are deteriorating prospects of peace, for the sake of his own future candidacy for Presidency in the United States.”

Later that night a group of volunteers from Palestine Solidarity Project were attacked by a settler who was countering the Peace Now demonstration, claiming that she had a right to this land even if it meant killing Arabs. The settler then grabbed the video camera from the hands of a volunteer and hit the rest of them until the police showed up and forced her to leave. She was not arrested or reprimanded by the police.

After the protest, settlers showed up in front of the evicted Hanoun house in Sheikh Jarrah, where the evicted family and Israeli and international supporters have been sleeping on the street since the eviction. The settlers were screaming “death to Arabs” until one was arrested. Amongst the commotion caused by the settlers, a relative of the Hanoun family who has been sleeping with them on the street was also arrested, and released the following day.

Huckabee is now touring other settlements in the Occupied West Bank, including Kiryat Arba in al-Khalil (Hebron).

The evacuation of two Palestinian families from the homes in the disputed East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah on Sunday drew a slew of condemnations.

The neighborhood was at the center of escalating tensions between Israel and the U.S. last month, when Israel’s plan to build some 20 new apartments there was revealed. The U.S. has demanded that the project be halted, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said two weeks ago that “Israel will not agree to edicts of this kind in East Jerusalem.”

The evacuation comes after a decision by the High Court of Justice last week, which ruled that the homes belong to Jewish families.

Robert Serry, the United Nations envoy to the Middle East, criticized the evacuation of the Palestinian families, saying “Israel’s actions are unacceptable.”

“I deplore today’s totally unacceptable actions by Israel, in which Israeli security forces evicted Palestinian refugee families registered with UNRWA from their homes in the Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem to allow settlers to take possession of these properties,” Serry said in a statement.

“These actions are contrary to the provisions of the Geneva Conventions related to occupied territory. They also contravene the united calls of the international community, including the Quartet?s, which in its recent statement urged the Government of Israel to refrain from provocative actions in East Jerusalem, including house demolitions and evictions,” he went on to say.

“These actions heighten tensions and undermine international efforts to create conditions for fruitful negotiations to achieve peace,” Serry went on to say.

The British consulate also issued a statement condemning the move, saying that Britain does not accept Israel’s claim that its courts are preventing radical settlers from entering Arab neighborhoods.

The British statement went on to say that the evacuation and such moves come in contrast with Israel’s declarations regarding its desire to achieve peace with the Palestinians. The British statement also called on Israel not to allow extremists to control the government’s agenda.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat also condemned the move.

No American response has been received yet, but U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has spoken out against the evacuation in the past, and is expected to issue a similar condemnation later in the day.

Early Sunday morning, local residents clashed with police after they arrived at the homes with eviction notices.

“Police arrived before dawn and cordoned off part of the Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah before forcibly removing more than 50 people,” said Chris Gunness, spokesman for the UN agency in charge of Palestinian refugees.

UN staff later saw vehicles bringing Jewish residents to occupy the homes, he said.

Last week, an examination by Haaretz revealed that Israel Lands Administration rules prevent Arab residents of East Jerusalem from taking ownership of the vast majority of Jerusalem homes.

Shiekh Jarrah and other East Jerusalem neighborhoods have been the subject of recent tension between Israel and the United States.

Two weeks ago, the U.S. State Department summoned Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Michael Oren, and told him plans to build another 20 homes for Jews in Sheikh Jarrah should be suspended.

Clinton in March criticized Israel’s plans to demolish Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem as a violation of its international obligations, calling it “unhelpful” to Middle East peace efforts.

“Clearly this kind of activity is unhelpful and not in keeping with the obligations entered into under the ‘road map’,” Clinton said.

East Jerusalem is home to more than 200,000 Palestinians, out of the city’s total population of 700,000.

At the same time, the protest tent that was constructed when Um Kamel Al-Kurd and her family were evicted from their home in Sheikh Jarrah, also for the benefit of Israeli right-wing settlers, was demolished once again.
A third house in Shekih Jarrah is still under threat of eviction, but was not included in this morning’s action.

The attack was just one more incident in a new wave of settler violence that began this past Sunday, when settlers launched their new “price-tag” campaign, in which settlers vow to inflict a “price” on Palestinians in retribution for intended settler evictions or freezes on settlement activity. The campaign is a response to US special envoy George Mitchel’s recent trip to Palestine, and the Obama administration’s “hardline” rhetoric against settlements. 11 new outposts were erected Sunday throughout the West Bank as the
“price” for condemning settlement expansion, and settler attacks have been more frequent and violent then usual throughout East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The settler occupation in Sheik Jarrah this Sunday coincided with the launching of this campaign.

For more information about settlements in Sheik Jarrah, visit
http://www.standupforjerusalem.org/.

The scene at 4pm on Monday was relatively calm with people videotaping the activities of the settlers and chanting slogans outside the tin barrier put up by the settlers along the perimeter of the pedestrian path in the center of the neighborhood. Roughly 60 protesters were present, about 1/2 Palestinian and 1/2 international and Israeli supporters. Young Palestinians set off fireworks nearby and banged on the tin wall making loud clanging noises. The 15 police and 10 border police present at the beginning of the protest began to react more and more violently, threatening the kids with violence by lifting their hands as if about to hit them. Despite a court order preventing the settlers from building a house on the land of the Palestinian home they partially destroyed, the settlers moved building materials into the house from outside – on two occasions with the help of the police – despite cries from the Palestinians that they were breaking the court order.

At 5:42pm as the protest got more active, 10 to 12 police charged the crowd attacking a small boy and pouncing on a Palestinian woman, Huda Imam, that was leading the anti-settler chants. Imam was thrown to the ground as at least 5 officers held her down and twisted her arm behind her back. She is the only arrest of the afternoon. Witnesses also report seeing people trampled during the assault and an Israeli was held and dragged by the neck after earlier attempting to negotiate with the police.

Shortly after, police attempted to intimidate other international activists near the van holding Imam by threatening to arrest them if they do not show their passports, though no arrests were made.

This is the first house in western Sheikh Jarrah that has been taken over by settlers, after winning a dubious court case in which the settlers claim the land was owned by other Jews prior to 1948, therefore giving them the legal right to take over the land, even though Palestinian landowners had deeds from the Ottoman Period. One house in eastern Sheikh Jarrah is currently occupied and the Hannoun and Al-Gawi families are currently facing eviction orders there.

The three Palestinians arrested on Sunday were released the same day. The Israeli and international activists were held overnight, released the next day on the condition that they stay out of Sheikh Jarrah for 3 weeks. One international was threatened with deportation, but it appears he too will be released on conditions.

Mousa Muhammad Ahmad Ouda’s new name is “Number 59.”

Ouda’s house is marked 59 of a total of 88 houses in one East Jerusalem neighborhood that are slated for demolition by the Israeli-controlled Municipality of Jerusalem. The Municipality says it plans to turn the area into a park.

The houses are marked in red on an official map drawn up by the Israeli authorities. On the satellite map the neighborhood, Bustan, is a sliver marked with a thick red boundary, an outline oddly similar to the outline of Mandate Palestine.

The Municipality says the houses were built without construction permits, but the residents say that the demolition orders are a calculated attempt to remove them from the land their families have inhabited for centuries.

“This house is more important to me than the Al-Aqsa Mosque. If I lose this house, I lose everything,” Ouda said during an interview in his one-story home, which lies a few hundred meters from the iconic mosque itself.

Land claims

Residents say that the demolition orders threaten the homes of 1,500 people just in the Bustan area, an enclave in the Silwan neighborhood, a densely-packed Palestinian area tucked in a valley adjacent to Jerusalem’s Old City.

The status of the houses has, in one sense, been in question since Israel seized East Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967. Unlike the rest of the occupied West Bank, Israel annexed Jerusalem, declaring the city, east and west, its “eternal undivided capital.” Palestinians

Through urban planning Israel has sought to limit the Palestinian presence in the city while maximizing the Jewish population. According to locals, Israel began demolishing houses in the area in1985.

The specter of mass demolitions was raised again in February, when the Municipality and the Israeli ministry of the interior rejected a community proposal to rezone the area for residential use. On 22 February, a team of Israeli surveyors visited the area, a move the residents suspect was a prelude to the destruction of homes.

“They call me number 59,” said Ouda, a round, bearded man, with bright eyes and a soft voice. “They used to number the Jews, and now look at the situation we’re in,” he said.

Ouda’s modest living room is decorated with family photographs. On a table is a portrait taken when he was released from prison in 1985.

As proof of his family’s claim to his land, he produces a yellowed paper, a Jordanian government document from 1950, signed by his grandfather. Three stamps – grey, blue, and red – are affixed to the paper, and on top of those, his grandfather’s thumb print in blue ink. The document states that the Ouda family owns the plot, and nams the owners of the adjacent plots, north, south, east, and west.

Asked why he built his home without a building permit, Ouda explains that it was only after the house was finished that the municipal authorities told him that he had not obtained the necessary permissions. He also produced receipts showing that he pays property, electricity, and water taxes to the Municipality.

Waiting for the bulldozers

Israeli authorities at the moment say they have no plans to raze the neighborhood. In the meantime, the inhabitants of Bustan wait for the bulldozers. On Monday two more houses were destroyed. Their owners said that they received no warning.

Mazen Abu Diab, a member of a local committee set up to protest the demolitions, described the sense of anxiety that the pending demolition orders creates: “Yesterday I saw a little boy walking home from school, and he was carrying a backpack that was much too large for him, and when I asked him why, I found that he had put his most treasured possessions in the bag, his family photos – he was afraid that his house would be destroyed while he was not there.”

The Bustan Committee has erected a tent in the neighborhood in an act of peaceful protest against the demolitions. The tent serves as a staging ground for visiting dignitaries (a Knesset member, Palestinian Authority officials, and Islamic authorities from the Al-Aqsa Mosque all visited on Tuesday) and journalists, as well as a meeting place where members of the community sit, and drink coffee and commiserate over their common struggles.

Another visitor to the committee tent on Tuesday was Eric Ascherman of the Israeli group Rabbis for Human Rights, which has been working to support Jerusalem families facing demolitions.

“I’ve had families tell me that worse than the demolition itself is waiting for the bulldozers,” Ascherman said, describing scenes of Palestinian families “sitting on their suitcases,” waiting for the demolition squad.

A cursory drive through the neighborhood reveals that this is true. One family, part of the Abbasi clan, has emptied their entire house, moving furniture and possessions to safer locations. They’ve even removed the doors of their three-story home, leaving it a hollow monolith. A few blocks away lies a recently-demolished home, a heap of concrete rubble and twisted iron.

A park

Pressed about the issue, officials at the Israeli Municipality of Jerusalem refer reporters to a statement Mayor Nir Barkat issued about the demolitions.

The statement reads, “The area … is one of the most important areas with regards to the history of Jerusalem, with holy sites important to Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. Because its significant importance to the more than 3 billion people of faith around the world, it is also a tourist destination.”

Moreover, “It is important to the future of Jerusalem that this area be treated with the utmost strategic importance. Emek HaMelech [Silwan] is not intended for residential development but rather it is intended to be an open public space.”

The statement is referring to an archaeological site and tourist attraction called the City of David. The Israeli government argues that the ruins found on the site are the home of the Biblical David. Currently tourists can pay to take a tour of the underground site which runs underneath the streets of Silwan.

Religious certainty

The mayor’s assertion, that value of the artifacts found on the site is grounds to raze a neighborhood, is disputed. Rabbi Ascherman argues that the value of the site should not be used as pretext for a violation of the rights of people who currently live on the land.

“As a religious Jew, as a Rabbi, I feel this is part of my history, part of my roots,” he said, referring to the archaeological site.

Ascherman also argues that in the Jewish tradition the significance of the site is too ambiguous to support the government’s policy: “It’s very difficult, in Judaism, to say ‘Judaism says.’ Our tradition is too multi-layered. It’s too ancient. It’s too based on debate, to say that about almost anything.”

“The closest thing you say ‘Judaism says,’ about it is about the value of human life and the holiness of the human being,” he said, “So, as important as my history is here, as important as my roots are here, human beings are more important. … So if I have to choose, with all the pain involved, human beings are more important than archaeology. They’re more important than stones.”

Some religious figures take a harder line against the Israeli claims about the site. Ekrima Sabri, the orator of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the chief of the Islamic Supreme Committee, also visited Bustan on Tuesday.

Sabri said, “There are no legal documents to prove that Prophet David lived here, as all the ancient remnants in Al-Aqsa Mosque and Silwan are pure Islamic. All the lands here belong to the Islamic endowment. Let them prove that Prophet David lived here.”

US pressure

As Sabri spoke, the new US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was meeting with Israeli officials, including Jerusalem Mayor Barkat, across town. Clinton said the next day that the demolition orders were “unhelpful” to peace efforts, and that she would raise the issue with Israel, including “at the municipal level” in Jerusalem.

It was not immediately clear however if the topic came up during Clinton’s meeting with Barkat on Tuesday. Asked about this, a spokesperson for the mayor, Stephan Miller, said it did not come up “to my knowledge.”

“It wasn’t a sit-down, maps-on-the-table working meeting,” said Miller.

Mousa Ouda, Homeowner Number 59, was not even aware that Clinton was in town. “Since the demolitions began again I haven’t had time to pay attention to outside things,” he said.

However, Ouda speculated that the US should theoretically be able to intervene and prevent Israel from bulldozing the area for a park.

“If she [Clinton] came here it’s because America is the father of the world [Abu Al-Alam],” he said.

Sheikh Sabri, the Muslim cleric, was highly pessimistic about Clinton’s visit: “We hope she could make change, however, I recall that her predecessor Condoleezza Rice failed to remove one single Israeli military checkpoint. Thus, I don’t expect Israel to listen to Clinton. Besides, Israel receives utter support from the US, and no pressure at all is exerting on Israel.”

“My expectation is that nothing positive will emerge from this visit,” he said.

Specter of Intifada

If Clinton fails in her efforts, Palestinians predict the situation will take an ominous turn. This is to say that if the international community fails to stop the demolitions, Israel could face more serious protests than men sipping coffee in a tent.

Interviewed by Ma’an about the Silwan issue last week, the Palestinian governor of Jerusalem, Adnan Husseini predicted the onset of a new intifada, or uprising, against Israeli rule.

“I’m sure that it will create a new intifada if they continue with this,” he warned. “No doubt.”

Last Saturday the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) declared a general strike in the West Bank and Gaza in protest of the demolition orders.

Asked about this, Bustan residents declined to rule out the possibility of another uprising. According to one member of the Bustan Committee, “Maybe there will be another intifada. If your house is destroyed, and your brother’s house is destroyed, and your cousin’s house is destroyed, eventually it’s hard to take.”

Sheikh Sabri also refused to rule out the possibility of a renewed uprising.

“Everything is possible,” he said, “If Israel wants peace, they have to avoid confiscating and demolishing people’s properties and let them live in peace.”

“As for a new uprising, I say again, everything is possible.”

The Municipality is following a vicious policy, where they use city planning to achieve military, political, and nationalistic goals. Palestinian communities are fragmented and then isolated through forced dispossession from their houses and land and, in other cases, the use of zoning and planning to restrict growth. A coordinated effort is used to build roads, establish settlements, create parks, and designate archeological sites through Palestinian communities. Once families are forced from their homes there is little space for them to stay in Jerusalem, thereby furthering the Judaization of the city.

Moving forward aggressively with evictions and demolitions at this time is seen as a confrontation to President Obama, and to ensure that the agenda is set here, and not in Washington. The new government in Israel is showing that they will stand fast in negotiation and not coddle to Washington.

Bishop Attallah Hanna, the Archbishop of the Roman Orthodox Church, began with a prayer “in support of our people,” and “to lift the siege on our people in the Gaza Strip.”

Jerusalem itself is under heavy siege by the Israeli government and its forces which are creating new facts on the ground in contravention to international law and the United Nations, including settlement building and expansion, Wall construction which is cutting off the city from the rest of the West Bank and its own inhabitants from one another, home demolitions, land confiscation and ethnic cleansing.

Bishop Hanna said, “We in Jerusalem stand by our people in Gaza and call for the lifting of the unjust embargo against our people there in solidarity with Gaza. Today and always Jerusalem and Gaza are together with the blessed holy Jerusalem defended by our sanctities. We feel complete solidarity with Gaza which is suffering from tragic, harsh and difficult circumstances: the ongoing siege of Gaza and the continuous targeting of stone and humans and the trees.”

He asked, “Does anyone have the right to blockade more than a million and a half people in Gaza? Does anyone have the right to deny electricity, food and medicines? The Gaza Strip is denied the most basic rights to life, including the basic rights of childhood. Who holds the right to do this? Patients are suffering, being deprived of medication and treatment. This is being done with relative impunity, as if there were any right to isolate our people in Gaza, as if they are prisoners in a large prison.”

The Bishop called for international and local concern. “We had hoped that all the people of good will and conscience that work for lifting this unjust embargo would succeed. And we appeal to our friends everywhere to do their humanitarian duty towards our people who are besieged in Gaza.”

Along with Bishop Hanna on Saturday were hundreds of other Palestinians and foreign supporters living in Jerusalem.