<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Occupied Palestine | فلسطين]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[occupiedpalestine]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/author/hajarhajar/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[Demolishing another Jerusalem&nbsp;Landmark]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<table border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="1" width="100%" align="center">
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<td class="normal_text" style="padding-left:15px;" align="right">16:42 01/10/2011</td>
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<td height="15px" valign="top"><img src="https://i2.wp.com/palestinechronicle.com/images/separator.jpg" alt="" width="510px" height="1px" /></td>
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<td align="center"><img class="border" src="https://i0.wp.com/palestinechronicle.com/uploads/1294695734shepard_hotel_destroyed_images.jpg" alt="" vspace="2" width="400px" height="300px" /></td>
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<td class="caption_text" align="center">Shepherd Hotel is Jerusalem landmark. (Via Aljazeera)</td>
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<td class="normal_text" style="padding-top:10px;"><strong>By Jeremy Salt – Ankara</strong></p>
<p>Once  again Israel demonstrates its contempt for the world. This time the  location is the Jerusalem quarter of Sheikh Jarrah and this time the  occasion is the demolition of the Shepherd Hotel, the latest target in a  process of demolition and rebuilding in the Zionist image that has been  going on for the past six decades in all of Palestine.</p>
<p>The first  actions of the occupying regime in East Jerusalem in 1967 was  the  destruction of the medieval Magharibah quarter, founded in the 12th  century by a son of the great warrior Salah al Din al  Ayyubi (Saladin),  to make way for a &#8216;plaza&#8217; in front of the western wall of the Haram al  Sharif. Soon after it was the turn of the Fakhriya compound, the home of  the sheikh of the Shafi&#8217;i school of Islamic law. A section of the  Mamilla century, where the remains include the bones of the Companions  of the Prophet Muhammad, was bulldozed to make way for a garden, a car  park and lavatories. The rest has since been built over to make way for a  &#8216;Museum of Tolerance&#8217;. The destroyed buildings were part of Jerusalem&#8217;s  architectural and historical heritage. The people who lived there were  driven into the street and left to fend for themselves as best as they  could, a precedent for thousands of similar situations which were to  follow. Had the awful chief rabbi of the Israeli &#8216;defence&#8217; forces,  Shlomo Goren, had his way, the destruction would have included the Aqsa  mosque. Israel&#8217;s intention is to destroy Arab Jerusalem and replace it  with Jewish Jerusalem. The difference is that Arab Jerusalem was a  tolerant city. Jewish Jerusalem is not. It is a city of religious and  secular fanatics, who have no consideration for any interests, laws or  rights other than their own. The city has not known a worse period of  history since it was captured by the Crusaders in the 11th century.</p>
<p>Now  we have the destruction of the Shepherd Hotel, a landmark in Jerusalem  since early in the 20th century. It was built as a home for the mufti of  Jerusalem, Haj Amin al Hussein, before he escaped from the British in  1937. He never lived there. The building was the home of Katy and George  Antonius, the celebrated Palestinian Arab historian, and then was used  as a base for British soldiers before being converted into a hotel. In  1967 the government of Israel declared the hotel &#8216;absentee property&#8217; and  used it for its own purposes before &#8216;selling it&#8217; in 1985 to the   American  Jewish billionaire Irving Moskowitz, who made his money from  casinos and gives a sizeable percentage of it to the Ateret Kohanim  settler organisation. The US government theoretically opposes  settlements but has never even attempted to put a spoke in Moskowitz&#8217;s  wheel,  which it could have done by removing the tax-free status of his  &#8216;philanthropic&#8217; donations to Israel. Of course, the Shepherd hotel was  never sold. It could not be, seeing that it was not the property of the  state of Israel in the first place. It remains the property of the  Husseini family. The property which was &#8216;sold&#8217; was stolen and under any  laws except those of Israel&#8217;s, it remains the property of the original  owner (ask your friendly local policeman for confirmation).</p>
<p>Beyond  all of this, everything Israel has done in East Jerusalem since 1967 to  bring about permanent change is illegal under international law. The  movement of civilians into occupied territory is specifically prohibited  under article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention (1949), one of many  articles of the convention which Israel has violated. The declaration of  the Greater Jerusalem municipality in 1967 is an inherent violation of  international law. Nir Barkat has no more right to call himself the  mayor of Jerusalem than any official administering any occupied  territory anywhere at any time. Laws and regulations changing the status  quo in East Jerusalem represent breaches of international law enabled  by the government of Israel. Those of Barkat&#8217;s voters who live in East  Jerusalem have no right to be there and therefore no right to vote. They  are civilians who have been transferred into occupied territory. The  whole situation is quite mad, but at least consistently mad.</p>
<p>The  purpose of pulling down the Shepherd Hotel, all but the facade, which  will be maintained to give the new structure some semblance of  historical authenticity, is to built 20 luxury apartments for Jews only.  This could not happen nowhere elsewhere without being described as open  racism but in Israel it is no more than par for the course. Racism  seeps out of the state and society more overtly and openly and defiantly  every day. It is not accidental but structural. It is embedded in the  ideology of Zionism and in the laws and regulations of the state and it  is encouraged right from the top. Notwithstanding Netanyahu and his  equally repugnant Foreign Minister are driving forward the whole ugly  process. They are the head on the body of the stinking fish. Opinion  polls show that Jews don&#8217;t want to live in the same street or apartment  block as &#8216;Arabs&#8217;. Hundreds of fanatical rabbis sign petitions  prohibiting the sale or rental of property to &#8216;Arabs&#8217;. Again, we should  not be surprised, seeing that this was the principal article of the  Jewish National Fund when it began trying to purchase land in Palestine  early in the 20th century. &#8216;Arabs&#8217; in East Jerusalem are beaten up by  marauding gangs of Jewish youth. &#8216;Arab&#8217; students in Safad – a  Palestinian city taken over by the Zionists in 1948 as all other cities  were – are threatened and abused by Jewish fundamentalists.  Demonstrators protest against Jewish women going out with &#8216;Arab&#8217; men.  Even love cannot deflect their hate. Inside and outside the Knesset  members of this less than august body threaten the &#8216;Arabs&#8217; and threaten  the Jews whose conscience does not allow them to remain silent witnesses  any longer to the brutality and the racism of the state. So why should  anyone be surprised by the decision to pull down a Palestinian-owned  hotel and replace it with an apartment in which only Jews can live.</p>
<p>The  only positive sign in this ugly climate is that the EU finally seems to  be getting its act together. A document has been prepared calling on  representatives of all EU governments to refuse to have anything to do  with representatives of the government of Israel east of the so-called  &#8216;green line&#8217;. They would not deal with them, they would not acknowledge  them, they would not visit their offices, they would not use Israeli  travel and tourist offices when making their plans and they would not  accept to be protected under  Israeli &#8216;security&#8217; arrangements. The  reasoning behind this document is that if there is ever to be a  settlement, East Jerusalem must be the Palestinian capital, and that  option is fast disappearing in the dust of Israeli bulldozers. Israel  will be trying to work on the EU directly and through the US to compel  it to drop this plan. Let&#8217;s hope that for once, the EU sticks to its  guns and actually does something that opens up a little sliver of light  in this gloomy situation.</p>
<p><em>&#8211; Jeremy Salt is associate  professor in Middle Eastern History and Politics at Bilkent University  in Ankara, Turkey. Previously, he taught at Bosporus University in  Istanbul and the University of Melbourne in the Departments of Middle  Eastern Studies and Political Science. Professor Salt has written many  articles on Middle East issues, particularly Palestine, and was a  journalist for The Age newspaper when he lived in Melbourne. He  contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.</em></td>
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<p><a href="http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16540">Demolishing another Jerusalem Landmark</a>.</p>
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