Sheikh Jarrah

Under the British Mandate Sheikh Jarrah was a well-to-do neighbourhood of East Jerusalem inhabited mainly by prosperous "Arab" families. Jewish immigrants, especially refugees from Nazi Germany, purchased a number of homes in Sheikh Jarrah and lived peacefully with their neighbours. When the British withdrew from Palestine, East Jerusalem was occupied by Jordanians who expelled the Jews from Sheikh Jarrah. Their homes were taken over by the Jordanian Custodian of Enemy Property which rented them to homeless Palestinian refugees who had fled from Israel.

After the 1967 Six Day War East Jerusalem was occupied by the Israelis, and the occupants then paid their rent to the Israeli Custodian of Absentee Property.

Right-wing Israeli extremists, anxious to "Judaize" Jerusalem, have encouraged Israelis whose families used to live in Sheikh Jarrah to evict the Palestinians and reclaim their ancestral homes. Palestinians and some left-wing Israelis hold regular demonstrations in Sheikh Jarrah to resist these evictions.

Palestinians point out that Arab families evicted in 1948 from the West Jerusalem neighbourhoods of Talbiya and Bak'a have lost all legal claim to their former homes.

This is a human tragedy - first Jewish refugees became refugees once more: now Palestine refugees suffer a similar fate. The need is for compassion, not litigation.

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