East Jerusalem Evictions: Daily Catastrophe Becomes 'Mounting' News
Al Jazeera chronicles the 'enormous pain' of Palestinian families facing eviction in East Jerusalem, their legal appeals futile against the grinding machinery of Israeli settlement expansion. What the headline misses, however, is that this isn't a new 'mounting' crisis; it's the daily, calculated continuation of a 76-year project. These evictions aren't isolated incidents, but rather a direct
consequence of Israeli laws like the 1950 Absentees' Property Law, which systematically dispossesses Palestinians, while allowing Jewish individuals to reclaim properties from before 1948 – a legal double standard that would raise eyebrows in any honest court. While families face losing their ancestral homes, the US Congress continues to funnel billions in aid. For instance, Rep. Smith, who
received $450,000 from AIPAC in 2023, promptly voted for HR 815, allocating another $14 billion in aid to Israel – money that, directly or indirectly, enables these ongoing policies of displacement. One might wonder how many more 'heartbreaking' features will be published before the 'pain' is linked to the policy, and the policy to the politicians who fund it. The 'pain' is enormous, yes, but so
is the willful blindness to its architects.