EAST JERUSALEM FAMILY FIGHTS EVICTION ORDER WITH

UNCLAS JERUSALEM 001325 SENSITIVE SIPDIS NEA FOR FRONT OFFICE. NSC FOR ABRAMS/SINGH/PASCUAL E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KWBG PREL PHUM IS PBTS SUBJECT: EAST JERUSALEM FAMILY FIGHTS EVICTION ORDER WITH PA, ACTIVIST SUPPORT REF: JERUSALEM 1257 ¶1. (SBU) Muhammad and Fawziya al-Kurd told PolOff on his July 21 visit to their Shaykh Jarrah home that they will continue to resist an Israeli eviction order despite legal setbacks (reftel). Fawziya said the family has been resisting Israeli efforts to remove them for two decades and will not move elsewhere, even if forced out by Israeli police. Fawziya said she met with PA President Mahmud Abbas (Abu Mazen) on July 19 and receives daily visits from Abbas' Chief-of-Staff Rafiq Husseini and Jerusalem Advisor Adnan Husseini, and PM Salam Fayyad's Jerusalem Advisor Hatim Abd al-Qadr. ¶2. (SBU) PolOff observed 12 Israeli and international activists, including Arik Asherman, head of Rabbis for Human Rights, keeping vigil at the house to resist police who could execute the eviction order at any time. Comment -------------- ¶3. (SBU) The al-Kurd eviction order has attracted press attention and PA support because it involves what Palestinians regard as a fundamental injustice in the treatment of Jerusalem property. The GOI has often permitted settlers to take over Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem on the basis of historic Jewish ownership (it is not disputed that Jewish families lived in the neighborhood in the 1930s), but has never allowed Palestinians with clear property title to return to their West Jerusalem homes. Palestinian contacts in Jerusalem view the al-Kurd family, who fled from their home in West Jerusalem's Talbiyah neighborhood in 1948 and now are threatened with eviction from their East Jerusalem home, as a local symbol for Palestinian property rights. WALLES