U.S. Billionaire Funds NGO Evictions of Jerusalem Workers

SHEIKH JARRAH, EAST JERUSALEM, January 6 — Palestinian and Jewish activists, including PL’ers from Israel-Palestine and the U.S., held a rally protesting the racist eviction of Palestinian families from their homes in this neighborhood, minutes away from the center of Jerusalem. The demonstrators demanded real justice, the return of the families to their houses and the removal of violent settlers and brutal cops from the neighborhood.

Since the 1990’s, settlers, paid for handsomely by the El’ad and Ateret Cohanim NGOs (non-government organizations), used the Israeli courts to seize houses here. Despite the fact that the Palestinian residents, all working class, were the legal owners of their homes and had all the documents necessary to prove this, the court ruled for the settlers — upper-middle-class Jews — who only had very dubious documents of ownership. Obviously the Israeli court of “justice” is openly racist and prefers the “rights” of wealthy Jewish settlers over those of Palestinian or Jewish workers.

NGOs Serve Ruling Class

Both settler NGOs operating in East Jerusalem, El’ad and Ateret Cohanim, are heavily funded by Irving Moskowitz, a U.S. capitalist and “philanthropist” based in Miami, who has made his fortune from constructing private hospitals and casinos. Moskowitz pays the settlers to take over Palestinian houses and land throughout East Jerusalem so he can build real-estate projects (for wealthy Jews only) a few minutes drive from the city center, and reaps super-profits in the process.

PL’ers from both Israel-Palestine and the U.S. have visited the home of the al-Kurd family here. The family had received its home and land from UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Work Agency) in 1956. A few years later the Jordanian government, which ruled the West Bank and East Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967, acknowledged the family as the owners of their house.

But apparently having full land title and living on the land for 56 years wasn’t enough for the Israeli court. In the 1990’s, the al-Kurd family built a small housing unit in their yard for one of their sons. The Israeli court ruled that this construction was “illegal” and repossessed the housing unit. From 1999 to 2009 it stood empty.

In 2009, however, teenage settlers were allowed to live in this unit, rent free, and were also paid to live there! These settlers are very violent towards the al-Kurd family; they order their dogs to attack the family members. However, if the al-Kurd family dares to report these attacks to the police, they themselves get arrested, not the aggressive settlers!

The court has decided that the entire al-Kurd house belongs to the settlers’ NGO. Now there’s a standing lawsuit against the family, demanding they pay a hefty rent to that NGO for the house which they own.

Free Housing for Racist Thugs; Evictions for Workers

This is the true face of capitalism: free housing for racist thugs and evictions for workers. Be it Columbia University’s expansion into Harlem (at the expense of black workers; see CHALLENGE, 01/04/12) or Moskowitz’s take-over of East Jerusalem, the bosses use courts, cops and racism to rob the working class and make huge profits along the way.

We, workers and unemployed from all nations and ethnic groups, must unite and fight these racist bosses and their fascist state machine, be it liberal Obama’s subtle fascism or openly fascist Israeli ruler Netanyahu’s overt apartheid state. As long as the bosses control the state, they will use it against our class. The only real answer to capitalism’s horrors is for us, the working’ class, to rally behind the flag of the communist PLP and smash the bosses’ state, replacing it with a communist state of, for and by our class.