If the Palestinians, the occupants of the Jewish houses in Shimon HaTzadik-Sheikh Jarrah, were free from pressure - at least some of them might have accepted the generous compromise proposal presented to them by Supreme Court justices a few days ago.
After two previous courts had already ruled that they should vacate the houses, the Supreme Court this week offered the families of Jeuni, al-Kurd, Skafi and Abu Hassana (who sought leave to appeal previous rulings) to recognize Jewish ownership of the compound.
In return, they, their sons and grandsons, will continue to receive "sheltered housing" in the Jewish compound in Shimon Hatzadik and will even pay a price that is less than symbolic: NIS 1,500 per year.
The three judges, the president of the panel, Yitzhak Amit, Dafna Erez-Barak and Noam Solberg, did everything in their power to dismantle the mine that was laid in front of them. With serious riots and attacks on Jewish homes in Shimon Hatzadik last May, and subsequent events - the missile attack on Israel, the Wall Guard operation and the disturbances in the cities involved - it was clear to the judges that they went out of their way to avoid a decision that might force them to evict Arab families. Although they do not own them, they have been living in them for decades.
But the four families who have long since petitioned the Supreme Court are not just private families. They have become one of the prominent symbols of the Palestinian narrative in the struggle for Jerusalem; Cultural heroes in a story that takes the two hawkish sides back to 1948. From this point of view Sheikh Jarrah, like all of Palestine, is forever the land of Waqf, which must be liberated. From the Jewish point of view, this is the tomb of the High Priest Shimon ben Khonio, which was purchased from the Arabs religiously and legally 145 years ago; An area from which the Jews were expelled in riots and blood on the eve of the establishment of the state. The judges tried in vain this week to neutralize this dimension of the argument, but found it difficult to do so. The Palestinian side repeatedly rejected their compromise proposal.
Behind the scenes of the mediation show at the top, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and the northern faction of the Islamic Movement are pressuring Arab residents in the compound not to agree to any compromise that would include recognizing Jewish ownership of the 17 dunams around the tomb of Shimon the Righteous. On the Jewish side - the Nahalat Shimon company, which purchased the land in 2007 from the "Spanish Community Committee" and the "Knesset of Israel" (buyers of the land in 1876), actually tends to respond positively to the compromise and apparently has good reasons for doing so: Although it will last three generations, if and when the Jewish owners of the complex succeed in obtaining a building permit for the area - they will probably be able to evacuate the protected tenants so that the settlement agreement will not hold water.
To get the Palestinians off the tree, and allow them to continue living in houses for at least a few more years, this week, in an unusual move, Israeli diplomats in Washington "recruited" their US counterparts to put pressure on the Palestinians to adopt the Supreme Court's compromise proposal.
The State Department took this step after the State Department made it clear to Israel that the United States opposes the eviction of Arab families from the compound even though it is Jewish-owned and despite court rulings on the matter, as these have been families living there for decades. For a legal decision, but the Americans rejected the Israeli answer and pressed.
In response, Israel acted against the administration in Washington.
She presented to him the compromise proposal of the Supreme Court judges in his minority and as a fair proposal that could bring calm to Shimon the Righteous.
Israel has also hinted to the Americans that there is a good chance that the Jewish side of this alleged real estate dispute will accept the compromise, and as such, all pressure on the Palestinians must now be exerted, released from the terror of PA and Hamas operatives, and allowed to make a free decision.
Biden // Photo: IPI,
"Do not overload history"
The chances of this combined American-Israeli move are not high, but it is currently the only "game" in the city, or rather in the small and explosive Jerusalem neighborhood, coming from the university campus and Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus.
Jordan is also in the picture. The Hashemite Kingdom handed over to the Palestinians in Jerusalem documents, ostensibly indicating that on the eve of the Six Day War there was an unfinished process of registering properties in the name of the Arab tenants; These tenants were housed in Jewish homes by Jordan and UNRWA, after the Jews withdrew from them during the War of Independence. The Jordanian documents were submitted to the Supreme Court a few days ago and it is unclear if and how they will affect the judges' final decision. A document linking the petitioners to the assets.
One way or another, Israel and the United States are trying to include Jordan in the compromise initiative, so that it too will pressure the Palestinians to adopt it. To block the Jewish settlement move there, just as it tries to block other settlement moves of the Jewish side in Jerusalem.
The Biden administration has informed Bennett, Lapid and Gantz that it opposes not only the removal of Arab families from Shimon the Righteous, but also the construction of another phase of the Har Homa neighborhood;
For the construction of the neighborhood in the areas of E-1, between Ma'ale Adumim and Jerusalem;
To build a neighborhood in Atarot, and to implement the plan, which was already approved at the end of Netanyahu's time, to establish a Jewish neighborhood on Givat Hamatos.
President Biden spoke with Bennett on the phone about the Har Homa issue and also raised in the conversation the US opposition to similar initiatives which, in his view, are "establishing facts on the ground that could torpedo a future political solution."
It is not known how Bennett reacted to this, but one thing is clear: just as in Netanyahu's day, so in Bennett's day, Israel still does not build the additional phase of the Har Homa neighborhood, does not build in Atarot, does not build on Island 1 and Givat Hamatos, and does not evacuate more families Arab women in "Shimon Hatzadik", where 22 Jewish families already live.
But now the political controversy is moving to the courtroom. At last week's hearing, Judge Dafna Barak-Erez almost begged the absence of Arab families, lawyers Sami Arshid and Saleh Abu Hussein, not to turn the legal discourse in the courtroom into a "history lesson." "You're loading too much history here," she greeted them. The head of the panel, Justice Amit, offered the families a move of "constructive diplomacy," as he defined it. "We will write," he suggested, "that the applicants declare that they are the protected tenants and that the respondent (Nahalat Shimon) is registered as the owner and thus we solved the problem. In this way we will gain a good few years," the judge continued. "Until then, either peace will break out or there will be a real estate settlement. Get down from the level of principles to the level of practice," Judge Amit urged the Arab tenants. "People should continue to live there. Get off statements. We are looking for a practical solution." But the Palestinians, for now, are refusing. This week they were supposed to submit to the Supreme, at his request,A list of the tenants in the complex and their legal status in it, but there is no guarantee that they will do so. They may seek further discussion of the compromise proposal and try to improve it.
From the Palestinian side's point of view, this is not only a struggle for the private home, but also a struggle against the continuum that Israel seeks to complete between West Jerusalem and Mount Scopus, which was cut off from Israel for 19 years and existed as an Israeli enclave in the heart of Jordanian territory.
At that time, the activities of Hadassah Hospital and the Hebrew University, which ceased on the eve of the establishment of the state, were resumed on the mountain.
Chief Justice Amit // Photo: Oren Ben Hakon,
The baby Shmuel Tzafnia
This continuum, as well as the tomb of the nearby Shimon Hatzadik, around which the small Jewish neighborhood that was located until the War of Independence was built, as well as the adjacent Arab Sheikh Jarrah houses, are not end sites in East Jerusalem.
This is an inhabited area on both sides of the seam line, next to which are the offices of the National Police of Israel, a row of hotels, a large center of Clalit Health Fund and areas holding 3,345 dunams that Israel expropriated immediately after the Six Day War.
The Israeli planners and the city of Jerusalem's sponsors have over the years seen this space as an essential part of the urban continuum that connects West Jerusalem to Mount Scopus. This sequence includes, among others, the levels of Eshkol, Sanhedria, French Hill and Degrees of Daphne. Tens of thousands of Israelis live there today. The Palestinians, on the other hand, who do not stop talking about all parts of the eastern part of the city as their future capital, seek to harm the same continuum. This is how the Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah became part of this "war game," and just as the Jews swear: "Again, Shimon the righteous will not fall," they swear: "Again, Sheikh Jarrah will not fall."
Until 1929, there was reasonable neighborly relations between the Jews and the Arabs in the area, but then riots broke out and Muslims who left the Nablus Gate attacked the houses of the small Jewish neighborhoods in front of it, not far from Shimon Hatzadik - especially the Nissan BK houses. They murdered 19 Jews, including the mother of baby Shmuel Tzafania, who was found next to his mother's body in the nearby Georgian neighborhood. Later, Zafnia accompanied the resettlement of Shimon the Righteous. He passed away a few years ago.
The Arabs also tried to expel the Jews from the Shimon Hatzadik neighborhood, first in 1936 and then in the events of 1936. They succeeded only on the eve of the establishment of the state: the British forced the Jews to leave Shimon the Tzaddik, after Arab rioters murdered three residents. Lots of Arabs massacred to death, near the deserted Jewish neighborhood, 78 doctors and nurses who made their way to the besieged Hadassah Hospital. .
To the displeasure of the Supreme Court justices, the hearings in their air-conditioned courtroom are not just legal, and even if the two historical narratives, the Jewish and the Palestinian, serve only as a backdrop for hearings - they are the ones that make the issue explosive. Hamas, by the way, has already renewed its threats of further violence on the southern border and in Sheikh Jarrah, if the judges do not rule in favor of the Palestinians. At the same time, the JNF is promoting the registration of dozens of allegedly Jewish-owned properties, managed by the Custodian General.