Israel wrecked my home. Now it wants my land.
By Nureddin Amro
Nureddin Amro is the founder and principal of Siraj al-Quds School for Integrated Education, a Jerusalem school for visually impaired, poor, orphaned and emotionally troubled children. Orly Halpern contributed reporting and fact-checking for The Washington Post.
EAST JERUSALEM — The world is watching Susiya to see if Israel will demolish the community of 340 Palestinians in the South Hebron Hills. The Supreme Court here has refused to delay the forced removal of structures where 55 families have lived since they were displaced by state-sponsored archaeological digs that helped expand a nearby settlement. Living under the threat of demolition is a horrible experience. The Palestinians of Susiya probably feel disoriented, unstable and scared that their way of life could be dismantled at any minute. I know, because I’m in a similar situation. In my neighborhood, the destruction has already started.
Just before dawn on March 31, dozens of Israeli soldiers and police officers blocked off the streets and surrounded the one-story house where my older brother Sharif, his family of six, our 79-year-old mother, my wife, my three children and I live. We had gone to bed looking forward to a picnic the next morning, but we were awoken by the frightening sounds of jeeps and heavy machinery. Israeli security forces banged on the doors, shouting in Hebrew that we had to get out at once. They had come to demolish our home.
I was born in Jerusalem. My parents were born in Jerusalem. Their parents were born in Jerusalem. Their parents were born in Jerusalem. Our modest house is approximately 70 years old — older than the state of Israel. I have lived here in al-Sawana, a neighborhood between the Old City and the Mount of Olives, not far from the Gethsemane Valley (where the Romans caught Jesus), for more than 40 years. It is near a commercial area, hospitals, Muslim and Jewish cemeteries and precious religious sites for the three big monotheistic faiths. In other words, I live on strategic land.
In December, city planners, civil engineers and workers from Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority began walking up and down the neighborhood. They ordered people on my block to clean up things like broken furniture and wood outside our houses (we complied), measured the area with surveying tools and spray-painted footpath markings for hikers. Eventually they told us that we lived on “public land” inside something called the Jerusalem Walls National Park (established in 1974), where they warned us they have plans for further work. Government documents suggest that they will connect the Tzurim Valley National Park and the Beit Orot settlement, below the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on Mount Scopus, where I studied, to the City of David archaeological site and Jewish settlement in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan — ultimately putting a Jewish belt around the eastern, Muslim side of the Old City. The parks authority has already boasted of beautifying this area, through which many Jewish pilgrims and hikers cross on Jewish holidays.
Source: www.washingtonpost.com