Reports from AP (1) and Reuters (2) that the Israeli state has approved the building of 1,100 new homes for Jews in East Jerusalem has shocked and angered its partners in the USA and Europe who have pledged support for its stance at the UN. British Foreign Secretary William Hague said settlement expansion was illegal and “corrodes trust and undermines the basic principle of land for peace. We call on the Government of Israel to revoke this decision.”

In December 2010, a delegation of UK lawyers visited occupied East Jerusalem to report on violations of housing rights occurring under the Israeli authorities. Forced evictions and house demolitions result in housing instability and deteriorating living conditions for Palestinian families, whilst restrictive planning policies limit the possibilities to recover, leading to detrimental economic and psychological effects. This seminar discusses the findings of the report and how these violations can be addressed in the context of international law.
Of interest to all activists, not just lawyers! All welcome.

Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity was formed by Israeli activists who met regularly to protest against Jews moving into the predominantly Arab east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. The Jewish Agency for Israel accuses it of being anti-Zionist, opposed to “the right of Jews to make their home in Israel”…

“I was a bit (very) anxious about passport control, not least because my trip to the West Bank has attracted a little coverage in midwifery and local press. I had visions of the guy behind the desk pulling out an article in which I mention my plans to observe midwifery practice in the West Bank and asking me to explain myself…” WithWoman blogs about her current trip to the West Bank

Israel’s Interior Ministry has revoked the permit for the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, The Rt Revd Suheil Dawani, to live in Jerusalem, and has refused requests to reinstate it, in spite of protests by Anglican authorities in the West specifically the United States..

Author Mike Marqusee writes of a recent visit to East Jerusalem and Sheikh Jarrar. He says of Jerusalem: “The city is a metaphor, an object of longing, a place from which we are all exiled, a better world to which we all aspire. In some parts of the tradition Jerusalem is an ideal of social justice. The literalism of Zionism, and of many pro-Zionist Christians, is very much a modern, reductive twist. At Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan and elsewhere, it is thin cover for a naked land grab.”

Novelist Ian McEwan is in Israel to receive the Jerusalem prize for literature despite a strong campaign calling on him to refuse to go. Here he defends his decision while taking part in the weekly protest in Sheikh Jarrar and saying he intends to “make my own thoughts clear” when accepting the prize from Jerusalem’s mayor, Nir Barkat…

Peace Now’s Settlement Watch has produced updated maps of settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. It is well-worth taking a closer look at the high-resolution PDF available for download.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) spells out the humann cost of evictions and house demolitions in East Jerusalem…

Donald Macintyre reports: “The European Union is so troubled by the increased settlement activity of Israel it has proposed that EU officials should be present at the site of imminent house demolitions or evictions and intervene if non-violent Palestinians face arrest in East Jerusalem, according to a new confidential report.”
And Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt condemns demolitions in East Jerusalem.
Updated 17 Jan: Nir Hasson reports on a secret EU recommendation to treat East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state

Richard Silverstein writes about Moshe Ben Zikri, recently elected “community adminstrator” for the neighborhood Pisgat Ze’ev (“It would be as if David Duke actually won that election when he ran for governor of Louisiana”). Zikri believes “there is an Arab ‘fire’ (yes, it appears the Carmel fire has become the reference du jour in the Israeli press) consuming Pisgat Ze’ev. His goal? To keep the neighborhood Jewish. That means, Arabs raus…”

The Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC) has issued a report highlighting the gender-specific impact that Israeli policies in East Jerusalem have on the lives of Palestinian women. WCLAC calls upon Israel to end forced evictions and home demolitions and makes recommendations to the international community and other actors to alleviate the situation of affected Palestinians.

It makes you want to weep and gnash your teeth… Defence of Children International, Palestine section, reports on two further shootings of children in the Gaza strip, as they attempt to collect building gravel well inside the border with Israel. These are the latest of sixteen cases documented by DCI this year. It urges people to protest to their MPS, our government and to the Israeli embassy.
And the case of a seven-year old in Silwan grabbed and beaten by two soldiers on suspicion of throwing stones… And an Open Letter from 60 Israeli professionals to the government, protesting at the treatment of the accused in more than 1,200 criminal cases against minors suspected of involvement in stone-throwing incidents in East Jerusalem opened this year!

A Haaretz investigation shows the state used a controversial law to transfer East Jerusalem assets to the rightist organizations Elad and Ateret Cohanim without a tender, and at very low prices. Nir Hasson reports…

In a major victory for the BDS campaign, Veolia has finally signed a principled agreement to sell its shares in the Jerusalem Light Rail project. But it still has many other interests in the occupation…

Christopher Hayes sends a postcard from Palestine: “I went to Israel and the West Bank with a group of American journalists on a trip sponsored by the New America Foundation. We were led through the streets of Hebron by Mikhael Manekin, a former Israel Defense Forces soldier who patrolled the city during the second intifada. He now runs an organization called Breaking the Silence, which collects testimony about IDF human rights abuses from Israeli soldiers. I had heard of Hebron, of course, but it was lodged vaguely in my mind as one of those foreign places where awful things happen. To see it in person is to understand viscerally that the status quo in the West Bank cannot hold. To see it is to understand just what occupation requires…”

A Supreme Court ruling Sunday may allow settler groups to move into dozens more homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
We trust that on the same basis Palestinians will soon find their former homes in Israel restored to them…

David Shulman writes: “It may sound unlikely, but we’re in ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan Street in Sheikh Jarrah and, together with Salah and other Palestinian friends from the neighborhood, we’re building a sukkah…”

Silwan, a neighborhood of Arab East Jersualem, is on the front lines of Israel’s settlement project. Militant settlers are moving in under cover of archaeological digs and claims that Silwan is the site of the biblical City of David. Israeli protesters are mounting a challenge to the settlers and the state’s complicity with them, in actions coordinated with local Palestinians that mirror the campaigns against the wall in the West Bank.
Joel Beinin reports on the new protest generation…

“Unsafe Space: The Israeli Authorities’ Failure to Protect Human Rights amid Settlements in East Jerusalem”, a new report by The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), draws attention to an alarming reality that is taking hold in East Jerusalem: The authorities have sided with well-organized political groups, whose purpose is to “Judaize” Palestinian areas of Jerusalem and especially the Old City and its environs. The result is that Palestinian residents of the city are increasingly subject to hostility and violence, and their rights and needs are disregarded and violated.