Gush Shalom’s Adam Keller on the sound and fury of Israeli officials, typically obscuring ongoing ethnic cleansing:
This morning, Israel’s Foreign Ministry came out with a great outcry about the European Union’s intention to proclaim that Jerusalem should be the capital of two states – West Jerusalem the Capital of Israel and East Jerusalem the Capital of Palestine. The Israeli ambassadors at all 27 European capitals were asked to approach the governments and make a sharp protest.
While the angry retorts of Lieberman and his officials continue to reverberate through air waves, at noon today extreme right settlers took over the home of the Al-Kurd Family at the Sheikh Jarah Neighborhood in East Jerusalem and expelled by force the family members. This is the fifth Palestinian house in this neighborhood to be taken over by setters, with the approval of the Israeli courts and active participation of the Israeli police. So far, some sixty inhabitants were literally thrown out into the street. Now they live in tents outside what were their homes. The settlers live in them, and the Blue-and –White flags fly proudly from the roofs.Perhaps it would be worthwhile for the Foreign Ministry to invite European representatives to tour Sheikh Jarah and see with their own eyes Israel’s eternally unified capital.