Evictions rising in East Jerusalem and a Melbourne man’s part in it all

East Jerusalem is one of the most contested pieces of land in the Middle East. International law says it is an occupied Palestinian Territory. Israel claims it is an essential part of the Jewish state. But for the Palestinians and Jewish people who live in East Jerusalem, side by side, it’s often a daily struggle to feel safe. If not physically, then psychologically.

And since the war in Gaza began nearly two years ago, an increasing number of Palestinians have been evicted from their homes there.

Today, foreign affairs and national security correspondent, Matthew Knott, on the battle for statehood that is being fought in this area, house by house. And the Australian-Israeli man who’s at the centre of it all.

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Episode Transcript

S1 (00:02):
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is the morning edition. I'm Samantha Cylinder Morris. It's Monday,
July 21st. East Jerusalem is one of the most contested
pieces of land in the Middle East. International law says
it's an occupied Palestinian territory. Israel claims it's part of

(00:25):
the Jewish state. But for the Palestinians and Jewish people
who live in East Jerusalem, side by side, it's often
a daily struggle to feel safe, if not physically, then psychologically.
And since the war in Gaza began nearly two years ago,
an increasing number of Palestinians have been evicted from their
homes there. Today, Foreign Affairs and National security correspondent Matthew

(00:48):
not on the battle for statehood that's being fought in
this area, house by house. And the Australian Israeli man
who's at the center of it all. So, Matt, first
of all, welcome home, because you have just recently returned
from a reporting stint in the Middle East. So to
start off, can you just tell us about East Jerusalem?

(01:11):
Why did you go there? Like why was that area
such a focus for you?

S2 (01:15):
This is a fascinating region. East Jerusalem I think, is
one of the most interesting. It's it's so contested, so complicated, so,
so bitterly fought over every aspect of it. Now, East
Jerusalem is really interesting because it's not quite like anywhere
else in Israel or the occupied Palestinian territories. I've spoken

(01:38):
to people and they say when you're there, it's a
very confusing place to be, because this is where all
the questions of who's in control, who has dominance here, who,
who really owns this space is incredibly contested, and it's
contested between what Israel says and what the international community says.

(01:59):
I was aware that this issue of, uh, demolitions, of homes,
of evictions. This is an issue that has had attention
over the years and has sparked actually major conflicts. It's
very combustible, uh, issue. Uh, but since October 7th, uh,
it's been accelerating. You know, the eviction, the removal of

(02:21):
Palestinians from their homes, their, uh, but it's been getting
less attention, obviously, because of everything that's going on, uh,
with Gaza. So. So we wanted to take a look
at this.

S3 (02:31):
And can you just give us a bit more context,
I guess, about East.

S1 (02:34):
Jerusalem and why.

S3 (02:35):
It is such a contested.

S1 (02:36):
Area?

S2 (02:38):
Yes, it really is. And you feel it as soon
as you go there. This is an area that's right
near some of the most important sites to Judaism, Islam
and Christianity. So we're talking about the areas where we
were reporting in, uh, right near the Temple Mount, the

(03:01):
Al-Aqsa mosque, the City of David. These are areas where
you get a lot of particularly religious visitors coming from
all the different faiths. And right near there, you have
residential neighborhoods that are not fancy. They're low income, very,
very densely populated. And these are Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.

(03:23):
So the Israeli government says that Jerusalem is its undivided capital,
both East and West. Israel captured East Jerusalem in the
1967 Six Day War. It then later annexed it and
officially took control of it in a way it hasn't
with the rest of the the West Bank. So it

(03:46):
says Jerusalem is our capital. All of it.

S4 (03:50):
You have both Israelis and Palestinians that live within essentially
a shared city, but that city is not necessarily shared
to the fullest extent.

S1 (03:58):
East Jerusalem is the site of the city that's considered
Palestinian territory under international law, but it's under Israeli military occupation.

S2 (04:07):
By contrast, the international community still considers East Jerusalem are
occupied Palestinian territory. The idea has always been that West
Jerusalem would eventually be the capital of Israel, East Jerusalem
would be the capital of a Palestinian state, and that
this would all be sorted out in a final peace agreement.

(04:29):
So what the war of over housing, which we're writing about,
is really a proxy for a bigger war of politics
over identity, over who controls this, this space. And you
see it as soon as you go there. The neighborhood
you're looking at was Silwan, and you see there in
every way that it's such a contested space. You'll see

(04:53):
the Israeli flag on one house. It'll be clear that
the house next door is Palestinian. You see, houses are
covered in security cameras, sometimes kind of barbed wire fencing.
You see security guards from the the Jewish Israelis who
have moved in as part of an effort to, um,

(05:15):
move Jewish Israelis into the area. So you feel an
incredible amount of tension there. Um, it's also a colorful
area because, as Kate's photographs showed, um, this has been
a site of activism by artists who have painted a
lot of Palestinian homes with different murals and particular eyes,

(05:35):
very large eyes painted on homes, which is intended to
say that the world is watching what's happening here. But
what many people say is whether the world's watching or
not is very questionable, and whether the world's doing anything
about it is very, very doubtful.

S3 (05:52):
Well, I.

S1 (05:52):
Wanted to ask you about one woman that you met
in this district of Silwan where, like you say, there's
this proxy war really playing out block by block at
the upper levels? It's between, you know, the struggle for statehood, really,
and East Jerusalem. And who's going to have ownership over that?
But in Silwan, you met this woman, Nadya Al-rajabi. So
tell us about her. And I guess the other Palestinian

(06:14):
families who are facing eviction.

S2 (06:17):
So Najah Al-rajabi was one of the several families we
met who were facing really imminent eviction from from their homes. Uh,
her family had only just recently, I think a week
before we were there, um, lost a case at the
highest level of the Israeli legal system in the Supreme

(06:37):
Court that these processes have been playing out for many years.
They received eviction orders, like many families in the area
several years ago. They've been fighting to stay in their homes,
but they've recently received essentially the final notice from the
legal system that that you will have to leave. And

(06:59):
they had 30 days notice, and it could happen at
any time. They could be evicted. Her husband, late husband
bought the property from another Palestinian owner. They'd been living there.
She's raised her whole family there. Um, around 18 people
live in the house. I think at times it swells

(07:19):
to quite a bit more within a very narrow, uh,
small apartment building. And among those who are living in
the house with her was, uh, 31 year old grandson.
And she said, I want to take you downstairs to
see my grandson. And he we were quite shocked because
he's lying in bed in a coma. It looks more
like a hospital ward than a bedroom, but the entire

(07:43):
family is facing eviction. She says they don't have anywhere
else to go at. The housing market in Jerusalem is very,
very expensive. Very hard to find anywhere to live. The
people here don't just think that on both sides. I
must say, they don't just think they're talking about housing
or an apartment building or where we get to live. Um,

(08:06):
it's very, uh, symbolically powerful. Important for their sense of identity,
their sense of where this issue is going politically, the
conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. So it's a very, um,
weighted issue there.

S1 (08:21):
And I'm so curious about the legality of all of
this because Najah Al-rajabi, she told you that her late husband, Awad,
bought the house that she lives in from a Palestinian
owner in 1975. She's got the documents to prove it,
but she's being evicted. So are these evictions legal and
if so, how?

S2 (08:38):
So essentially, this area of Silwan, it used to be
predominantly Jewish. In the late 19th century through to the 1930s,
there was an uprising there by Arab residents. The Jewish
residents were resettled elsewhere. And then over time, it became
almost entirely Palestinian. So what's happening here is that and

(09:01):
these were Yemenite Jews. So a trust associated with that.
And there is a specific Israeli law that allows Jewish organizations,
Jewish people, to essentially reclaim areas that they left before
the creation of the state of Israel and to come back.
So essentially, it's viewed under the Israeli legal system that

(09:23):
this trust owns the land, essentially owns the area of Silwan.
People like Najah Al-rajabi may have bought their homes legally,
but inside the Israeli system, it's entitled for Jewish people
and they will have to move out. Important for us
to understand the people who are moving in. They don't

(09:44):
necessarily have a connection to the families who left. They
don't necessarily have Yemenite heritage. It's about getting a Jewish
people back into these these areas.

S1 (09:53):
And I want to get into the politics of that
in a little bit, but sort of a follow up question,
I guess. So what happens to the current occupants, the
Palestinian occupants of these homes, that they're being evicted? Like,
are they compensated for their properties? What's provided for them?

S2 (10:07):
Yeah. So sometimes compensation is offered by the organizations involved.
And that like everything else here as we're figuring out,
is very, very complicated because an issue here is that
as part of this contest that's playing out, um, the
Palestinian authorities and also, uh, religious leaders are Islamic leaders

(10:30):
say the mufti of Jerusalem have made it banned to
a cell to what they call the enemy, which is
essentially an Israeli Jew. So if you're a Palestinian living
in East Jerusalem, you're not allowed under the political religious
system to sell to an Israeli Jew or to profit

(10:52):
from the sale of your home. So that complicates the
issue of compensation. Sometimes they're offered big money to. To
get out. But what they're saying is they really just
don't want to leave. They feel like it's where they belong.

S1 (11:06):
And I guess just to put a finer point on it,
just so we understand, it's legal according to Israeli law,
because there's a law that allows Jews who owned property
in East Jerusalem before 1948 to reclaim it. But the
UN actually condemns the evictions, right? The UN says that
this law in itself actually contravenes international humanitarian law, is
my understanding.

S2 (11:27):
Yes, yes, the UN have used this process as illegal
under international law. Some experts even say it could amount
to a war crime because of the idea of, uh,
not moving in, uh, the, the civilian population into occupied territory.
So you're getting at here. Is this an undivided Israeli

(11:50):
capital or is East Jerusalem occupied territory, if you're viewing
it from the perspective that it's occupied territory that will
eventually be part of a Palestinian state, then it's illegal
under international law. And and what the international community would
want would be to essentially leave it as it is

(12:10):
or as it was, and not be changing too much.
The demographic makeup there, and certainly not by force.

S1 (12:17):
And Israel says that East Jerusalem is not occupied. And
that's why it argues that it's not contravening international law. Right.
Because it disputes that it's even occupying the area.

S2 (12:27):
Yes, exactly. The Israeli position is it's the Israeli capital,
it's undivided. And it's important for Israelis, for Jewish people
to be able to live throughout the capital.

S1 (12:44):
We'll be right back. Okay. And this is really interesting
because when you were in East Jerusalem, you actually met
with an Australian Israeli man who leads a controversial group
which focuses on what its members call Jewish land reclamation
in Jerusalem. This is really at the heart of everything

(13:05):
we're talking about. So can you tell us about Daniel Luria,
the leader of this group, and what he is doing
in East Jerusalem?

S2 (13:11):
Yes. So Daniel Luria is a fascinating character. He still
has a very strong Australian accent and spent the first
part of his life, you know, the first 30, 35
years in Australia, in Melbourne. Um, but he says his
life only really began when he moved to Israel. And

(13:32):
from most of the time that he's been living there,
he's been working for this organization called Ateret Cohanim, which
comes in and through different methods, some of which they
don't talk about in detail, try and facilitate, uh, land
sales to get a Jewish Israelis into important parts of Jerusalem,

(13:54):
so they say. Most of what they do is facilitating
a voluntary property sales where the owner wants to sell. Uh,
but as we see, many people don't want to leave. Um,
and that's where the legal process kicks in. Ateret Cohanim
do receive support from the Israeli state. They, uh, they receive, uh,

(14:17):
security protection. You'll see their homes often heavily fortified. We saw, say,
young children walking to the shops. Or if they're walking
to school not too far away, they'll have a bodyguard
with walkie talkies and and firearms, walking them along Palestinian, uh, neighbors,
Palestinian homes next door. Daniel Luria describes them as modern

(14:44):
day pioneers that back in the day, you had the
kibbutzniks who were making the desert bloom. And that's a
big part of Israel's origin story.

S5 (14:56):
I'm not sure about what Palestinian people are. There are
Arabs who live in Israel today, and there are Arabs
who live inside of Jerusalem, and any Moslem or any
Christian is welcome to stay and to live with the
blue and white or red carpet rolled out before them
in the state of Israel.

S2 (15:13):
He says these are the modern day ideological pioneers who
are willing to take on personal risk, live in a
hostile environment to make sure that all of Jerusalem is
available to Jewish residents. And the bigger project, of course,
is to ensure that it never becomes part of a
Palestinian state.

S5 (15:33):
If they accept the Jewish state for Jewish people, if
all you want to do is destroy the Jewish state
and to kill Jewish people, as we saw with Hamas
and Hezbollah and Iran and their very open declarations, then
they will be fought and they there's no place for
them here in this tiny Jewish state. But any Arab
that wants to accept the Jewish state. He's welcome. He's part,

(15:54):
as we see today in Jerusalem.

S1 (15:56):
But his organization, this one that Daniel Luria leads, it
does have its critics who have said the group's work
is not benign. So tell us about that.

S2 (16:05):
Yeah, it's a very controversial group. It's often described as
a kind of far right settler organization. He wouldn't embrace
that term at all. But this is how it's often portrayed.
And there have been there's been a lot of reporting
about this group, you know, showing that it hasn't always

(16:25):
been a voluntary and benign and perhaps not always above board.
We've seen examples where Palestinians have said that activists associated
with Ateret Cohanim have essentially broken the locks and taken
control of their property. Forged documents to to take control

(16:46):
of strategically important properties. The group denies that. We've seen
reports of essentially threats, bribery, to try and get Palestinian
families out of their homes. They're willing to do things
that the Israeli state wouldn't do and some other non-government

(17:07):
organizations wouldn't do, because they're very determined in their mission.

S1 (17:11):
And broadly speaking, you know, this this effort by Jewish
settlers to reclaim Silwan and make it predominantly Jewish, whether
it's by Daniel Luria's group or other groups. I've read
in another report, you know, that many Palestinians see that
as a slow form of ethnic cleansing. Is that something
that you heard from Palestinian people in this area?

S2 (17:30):
Yes. They definitely see it as a part of a
bigger plan to kick them out of key places in
Jerusalem and gradually forced them back away from these places
that are very valuable to all the major monotheistic religions. Um,
the other way this is playing out is of demolitions

(17:53):
of homes in the same surrounding area. Different process to
the evictions and not involving Ateret cohanim. But yeah, walking
around some neighborhoods you can see every one in every three,
one in every four homes are now demolished. The homes
look no different than buildings that had been hit by

(18:16):
an Iranian missile.

S1 (18:17):
And then on the other side, just to sort of
wrap this part of it up, Daniel Luria, I believe
he has said in another report, you know, this is
existential for him, this fight. He says, we were promised
this land from God. We were kept in exile for
2000 years, and now we're back home. So does that reflect,
do you think, the broader feeling from the settlers who
are there, the Jewish settlers, that this is an existential

(18:38):
battle for them.

S2 (18:39):
An existential battle, a spiritual battle? You know, this this
part of the this part of East Jerusalem we're talking
about has biblical resonance. You know, we're talking about a
place that is considered the City of David. So it
has deep spiritual significance to the Jewish people, and they
think it's important for them to be living there. They're

(19:01):
viewing this in a much longer time span. You know,
the idea of a family living there for 70 years.
For them, that's not so long. You know, they're looking
at this in terms of thousands of years as part
of what they consider the promised land for them. That's
what Daniel Lewis says is very clearly says this is

(19:22):
our land. He says where the indigenous people of the land,
where the ones who have the right to live here,
if you're willing to live alongside us and live within
our system, then you're able to stay. But he says,
this is our, our, our land to to control. And that,
of course, is very, very heavily contested.

S6 (19:43):
Now, Matt, you know, for many listeners.

S1 (19:44):
Who are hearing this, this is so far away from
where they live, they have no connection to this land.
They might never go. Why do you think it's important
to report this and to tell this story, especially to Australians?

S2 (19:57):
Yeah, I think I think it's important to look at
it in a very up close and personal way. You know,
we often deal here in abstractions in high level diplomatic talk.
We've had big debates over this in Australia ourselves, over

(20:18):
the issue of Jerusalem. The Morrison government, of course, recognised
West Jerusalem, which was very controversial at the time. The
Albanese government reversed that, which in itself was controversial. So
what we wanted to do was take people down to
the ground level and the way this is being played out, uh,
you know, house by house, block by block, you see

(20:40):
how contested it is, how real it is, and that
there's nothing abstract about it at all for the people
who are actually living there. And I think for Australians also,
I do think this idea of the home you've bought,
the home you've lived in, is something we can all
understand and empathize with. What people spoke to us there

(21:03):
about was they would say, of course, the situation they're
facing is not nearly as bad as, say, a Palestinians
in Gaza who were being bombed. But this is a
very personal conflict. You know, you're talking about your neighbours.
They're talking about it in terms of a form of
psychological warfare. So it's very different to the impersonal nature

(21:26):
of other conflicts. And so that makes it very, very interesting.

S1 (21:35):
Well, Matt, we were so lucky that you were there
on the ground seeing firsthand accounts of what's happening there.
So thank you so much for your time.

S2 (21:42):
Thanks a lot. And I'm really glad people have taken
an interest in something which, as you say, is happening
a long, long way away and is complicated.

S1 (22:02):
Today's episode of The Morning Edition was produced by myself
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(22:24):
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