Rafat Sub Laban and his mother Nora at an
Israeli court hearing over the fate of their home
[File: Patrick Strickland/Al Jazeera]
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Head Lamp
Not the whole story (as usual).
Homes owned by the Jordanian
Government were homes that were
'owned by Jews in that part of
Jerusalem who were forcibly evicted,
killed or ran for their lives after the
1948 war. The Jordanian Govmt took
them over and rented to them to
families.
Having said that the family shouldn't
be evicted, it just causes resentment
and another reason for AJ to publish
an anti-Israel story
aristo
Rented from the
Jordanians...seriously! Then go fight
in a Jordanian court...
charles martel
Probably never paid rent
Cory Gudwin
In other words:
The Sub Laban never owned this
house
It was a rental
They do not have a deed for it
because they do not own it
FEATURED
The Sub Laban family has lived in their home in
the historic Old City of occupied East
Jerusalem for more than six decades.
But, like many Palestinian families in the city,
they have been struggling since 2010 against
an eviction order that will allow Jewish settlers
to take over their home.
Rafat Sub Laban, a 28-year-old human rights
activist, says his grandparents first rented the
home from the Jordanian government in 1953,
and his mother Nora was born there just three
years later.
In 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank,
including East Jerusalem, and took over all of
the property that had been under the control of
the Jordanian government.
But for the last five years, the Sub Laban
family's legal proceedings have been shrouded
in secrecy.
A group of Israeli settlers who are suing the
Sub Laban family claim that the home belonged
to a Hekdesh, or Jewish religious endowment,
before Israel's 1948 establishment.
More confusing still, Rafat and his family have
never seen the settlers in court: Only their
lawyer and their representative come to the
hearings. He recently learned that an American
company is involved in the takeover of his
home.
More than 547,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only
settlements across the West Bank - 196,890 of
whom are in East Jerusalem, according to
the Israeli rights group B'Tselem.
Palestinians in Jerusalem do not hold either
Israeli or Palestinian citizenship. Rather, they
carry Israeli-issued residency permits that can
be revoked.
Since Israel occupied the city 48 years ago, it
has revoked the residency of more than
14,000 Palestinian Jerusalemites.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Rafat explained that
his family recently received an injunction while
an Israeli district court decides if they can
appeal the country's high court.
Al Jazeera: What is at risk if you and your
family are evicted from the home?
Rafat Sub Laban: For me, this is the only home
I've known. I grew up in the home since I was
12 years old. We used to rent a home elsewhere
in Jerusalem while we did renovations, but we
moved back in when they were finished.
My mum has the most intimate connection to
the house. She was born in the home and my
grandmother died in the home.
My mum has memories of growing up in the
home with her siblings, who are now living
abroad, and her parents, who are both dead
now. She has a deep emotional connection to
the home. She shouldn't have to leave.
Nora Sub Laban was raised in the home that
Israeli settlers are trying to take over in
occupied East Jerusalem [Rafat Sub Laban/Al
Jazeera]
We feel targeted. But it's not just the settlers
behind this: It's the whole government, the
whole regime. They cut off my family's national
health insurance, as well as the Israeli district
court claiming that we haven't lived in
Jerusalem for the last 30 years.
This has been a struggle for my family. It has
disrupted our life completely, even on a day-to-
day basis.
Al Jazeera: What do you expect to happen? Do
you expect the court will issue a fair ruling?
Rafat Sub Laban: At the end of the day, we all
share the same belief that we will not find any
justice in Israeli courts.
From my point of view as a human rights
activist and someone whose family is involved
in this, I only see these courts as legalising
occupation and the oppression of Palestinians.
That includes home demolitions, land thefts
and mass imprisonment, among other
measures.
But it is the only option we have. The only
other option is to not go to the court and be
evicted from our home the next day. Even
though I don't believe the Israeli legal system
can give us justice, we have to do it because
there is no other option.
It's very frustrating because it's just my family
trying to fight this battle on the legal side and
on the campaigning side.
If a court ruled that we hadn't been living in
Jerusalem - and my whole life I lived in
Jerusalem - then the Israeli Ministry of Interior
can revoke our residency papers for the city, in
theory.
Al Jazeera: Do you know who will live in the
home if you are evicted?
Rafat Sub Laban: What we know at the
moment is that the people who will live in the
home are people with no claim to it and with
no memories or ancestral connections to it.
Any Jewish settler family will be able to live in
it.
We are being evicted just because we are
Palestinians and Muslims. Any random Jewish
family can come and live in our home.
One day in the court, the settlers' lawyer
claimed our home is an Ashkenazi Jewish
home, so an Ashkenazi Jewish family should
live in it.
Sixty years of our memories and existence in
this house - they're going to evict us and our
memories and our existence just so a Jewish
family can live in the house.
In Jerusalem, there is a law that allows Jews
to claim property that allegedly belonged to
Jews before 1948 [Israel's establishment].
This is a racist ideology. If you are Jewish, you
can claim property even if you don't have a
good claim to it. If you are Muslim or Christian
Palestinian, you cannot claim property that you
can prove belonged to you or your family.
Al Jazeera: What is life like living under Israeli
occupation in East Jerusalem?
Rafat Sub Laban: For Palestinians in East
Jerusalem, daily life is a fight for existence.
You fight on a daily basis for the most basic
rights. Such as just living in your house or
having a life with your family - that's
something that you have to fight for.
The human rights violations by Israel, the
targeting by Israeli settlers - all of this makes it
hard. It's not easy to feel like you're always
under threat.
This makes you feel like a stranger in your own
city. You know it's your city, but your right to
live in it is something that you have to fight for
every single day.
Nora and Rafat vow to stay in their family
home even if an Israeli court rules against
them [Rafat Sub Laban/Al Jazeera]
Evicting families from their homes is only one
of many policies. Israel aims to maintain a
Jewish demographic majority in East
Jerusalem.
Many different measures are designed to
displace Palestinians by force or coerce
Palestinians into leaving. This includes
discriminatory planning policies, evictions,
home demolitions, revoking residency cards and
mass incarceration.
All of this is imposed on us by Israel to
pressure Palestinians to leave Jerusalem. At
one point or another, Israel wants to displace
you by force or convince you to give up and
leave the city.
Al Jazeera: What will your family do if the
Israeli court rules against you?
Rafat Sub Laban: We don't have another
option. If we live with relatives in the West
Bank, then we can lose our Jerusalem
residency papers. We will not leave this home
voluntarily - that's what they're hoping for.
I am not leaving. We are not going to give up
our home just because a bunch of settlers want
us out. We are going to hold our ground. My
mother has been fighting to live in her house
for years.
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