JERUSALEM // A
legal battle being waged by Palestinian families to stop the takeover of their
neighbourhood in East Jerusalem by Jewish settlers has received a major fillip
from the recent souring of relations between Israel and Turkey.
After the
Israeli army’s assault on the Gaza Strip in January, lawyers for the families
were given access to Ottoman land registry archives in Ankara for the first
time, providing what they say is proof that title deeds produced by the settlers
are forged.
On Monday,
Palestinian lawyers presented the Ottoman documents to an Israeli court, which
is expected to assess their validity over the next few weeks. The lawyers hope
that proceedings to evict about 500 residents from Sheikh Jarrah will be halted.
The families’
unprecedented access to the Turkish archives may mark a watershed, paving the
way for successful appeals by other Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West
Bank caught in legal disputes with settlers and the Israeli government over land
ownership.
Interest in the
plight of Sheikh Jarrah’s residents peaked in November when one couple, Fawziya
and Mohammed Khurd, were evicted from their home by an Israeli judge. Mr Khurd,
who was chronically ill, died days later.
Meanwhile, Mrs
Khurd, 63, has staged a protest by living in a tent on waste ground close to her
former home. Israeli police have torn down the tent six times and she is facing
a series of fines from the Jerusalem municipality.
The problems
facing Mrs Khurd and the other residents derive from legal claims by the
Sephardi Jewry Association that it purchased Sheikh Jarrah’s land in the 19th
century. Settler groups hope to evict all the residents, demolish their homes
and build 200 apartments in their place.
The location is
considered strategic by settler organisations because it is close to the Old
City and its Palestinian holy places.
Unusually,
foreign diplomats, including from the United States, have protested, saying
eviction of the Palestinian families would undermine the basis of a two-state
solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The help of the
Turkish government has been crucial, however, because Palestine was part of the
Ottoman Empire when the land transactions supposedly took place.
Israel and
Turkey have been close military and political allies for decades and
traditionally Ankara has avoided straining ties by becoming involved in land
disputes in the occupied territories. But there appears to have been an
about-turn in Turkish government policy since a diplomatic falling-out between
the two countries over Israel’s recent Gaza operation.
Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, accused his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Olmert,
of “lying” and “back-stabbing”, reportedly furious that Israel launched its
military operation without warning him. At the time of the attack, Turkey was
mediating peace negotiations between Israel and Syria.
Days after the
fighting ended in Gaza, Mr Erdogan stormed out of a meeting of the World
Economic Forum in Switzerland, having accused Shimon Peres, the Israeli
president, of “knowing very well how to kill”.
According to
lawyers acting for the Sheikh Jarrah families, the crisis in relations has
translated into a greater openness from Ankara in helping them in their legal
battle.
“We have
noticed a dramatic change in the atmosphere now when we approach Turkish
officials,” said Hatem Abu Ahmad, one of Mrs Khurd’s lawyers. “Before they did
not dare upset Israel and put us off with excuses about why they could not
help.”
He said the
families’ lawyers were finally invited to the archives in Ankara in January,
after they submitted requests over several months to the Turkish consulate in
Jerusalem and the Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv.
Officials in
Turkey traced the documents the lawyers requested and provided affidavits that
the settlers’ land claims were forged. The search of the Ottoman archives, Mr
Abu Ahmad said, had failed to locate any title deeds belonging to a Jewish group
for the land in Sheikh Jarrah.
“Turkish
officials have also told us that in future they will assist us whenever we need
help and that they are ready to trace similar documents relating to other
cases,” Mr Abu Ahmad said. “They even asked us if there were other documents we
were looking for.”
That could
prove significant as the Jerusalem municipality threatens a new campaign of
house demolitions against Palestinians. Last week, Nabil Abu Rudeina, a
spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, called the recent issuing of
dozens of demolition orders in Jerusalem “ethnic cleansing”.
Palestinian
legal groups regularly argue that settlers forge documents in a bid to grab land
from private Palestinian owners but have great difficulty proving their case.
Late last year
the Associated Press news agency exposed a scam by settlers regarding land on
which they have built the Migron outpost, near Ramallah, home to more than 40
Jewish families. The settlers’ documents were supposedly signed by the
Palestinian owner, Abdel Latif Sumarin, in California in 2004, even though he
died in 1961.
The families in
Sheikh Jarrah ended up living in their current homes after they were forced to
flee from territory that became Israel during the 1948 war. Jordan, which
controlled East Jerusalem until Israel’s occupation in 1967, and the United
Nations gave the refugees plots on which to build homes.
Mrs Khurd said
she would stay in her tent until she received justice.
“My family is
originally from Talbiyeh,” she said, referring to what has become today one of
the wealthiest districts of West Jerusalem. “I am not allowed to go back to the
property that is rightfully mine, but these settlers are given my home, which
never belonged to them.”
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