Despite what we have been reading and hearing in the media, Israel did not take over Arab homes. The facts are just the opposite. The houses in the Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan neighborhoods of Jerusalem actually were built by Jews before 1948, some as early as 1845, when those were the Jewish neighborhoods of Kfar haShiloakh and Shimon HaTsaddik.
In 1948, when the Jordanian Army conquered the neighborhood and expelled its Jewish residents, Arabs squatters replaced them. After the Six-Day War, when Israel expelled Jordan from Jerusalem, the Jewish homeowners applied to the courts for return of their property. The Israeli government, hoping for a peace agreement, was reluctant to expel the squatters and brokered a compromise. The squatters were upgraded to legal tenants, but with no ownership rights. In return, they were required to pay rent to the Jewish owners, though at a rate much lower than market level.
After the Oslo Accords many years later, the Palestinian Authority forbade the tenants to pay any rent. The owners again went to court, where the case has gone slowly from one court to the next highest, reflecting the sensitivity of the Israeli government about expelling Arabs from homes they have come to believe are their own. The present generation of tenants may not even know that their parents or grandparents never owned this property, but in the eyes of the law that is immaterial. All of the world, wherever the rule of law prevails, tenants are evicted for failing to pay rent.
For lack of knowledge of history, what is and should remain a simple dispute between landlords and tenants became a Palestinian Authority political football, and has been used as a pretext to generate a greatly misunderstood international incident.
SALLYANN AMDUR SACK
Hanover
The writer was the founding chair of the International Institute for Jewish Genealogy and is editor and co-founder of Avotaynu: The International Review of Jewish Genealogy.
Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has done it again. He has suckered the Hamas radicals, and the world, by drawing us into another apartheid attack on the Palestinians. The same smoke-and-mirrors pattern is being implemented once again, and no one sees how cleverly he operates. Whenever he is under attack politically at home, he causes a spiraling incident pattern that starts “innocently” enough.
This time it was kicking out six Palestinian families from their homes on the West Bank — a major affront to the Palestinians, and a sure-fire way to start the process of response and escalation by the “hoodwinked” Hamas leaders, who predictably start rocket attacks on Israel, the only really meaningful level of retaliation they have. What else are they going to do, move troops and tanks and warplanes into Israel?
This gives Netanyahu “justification” for his warplanes attacking Palestinians. And of course, President Joe Biden and many other U.S. politicians articulate Netanyahu’s “right to self-defense.” The pattern continues until Netanyahu’s political status at home is improved — and we are ultimately suckered into excusing his war crimes.
I suggest that a close look at the recent wars and intifadas will show the same pattern: Netanyahu knows how to sucker the world into allowing his genocidal actions against the Palestinian people, all for his personal political gain. And we never look deep enough to see how he “innocently” starts this spiraling pattern, which only ends when the Palestinian people have lost many people, as well as hope and good will.
PHILIP ELLER
Norwich
Israel receives arms from the U.S. How much? Billions of dollars worth. How much land, how many homes, how many Palestinian orchards were appropriated by Israel? Lots.
In my view, Israel replicates the American antebellum South, where one law applied to violence by Black people against white people, but no law covered the reverse, which typically was cheered on. Similarly, Nazi violence against Jews was once celebrated in Germany. Now it is Israelis who meet their neighbors with violence.
How is Israeli treatment of Palestinians otherwise?
ROBERT BELENKY
Hanover
This week is designated as National Emergency Medical Services Week. While our dedicated emergency medical service providers provide exceptional service 24/7/365, this week is our opportunity as leaders of these professionals and as members of the community to say thank you to the firefighters and emergency medical providers of the city of Lebanon.
They all have been on the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is important they remember to keep themselves safe and balance the demands of their profession. Their commitment to working at mass vaccination clinics clearly shows their dedication to our community, and more
As chief of the Lebanon Fire Department, I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for all that they do for the city, our residents and visitors. Thank you for your devotion to the people we serve and the time away from your families to keep our community safe. Most of all, thank you for your commitment. We appreciate that each one of you is dedicated, caring and serves without the expectation of thanks.
Lastly, I would like to encourage our residents and visitors to thank these emergency medical service providers.
CHRIS CHRISTOPOULOS JR.
Lebanon
The writer serves as chief of the Lebanon Fire Department.
What event or person caused the calendar to be started — days of the week, months of the year, names of the days and months, how long a year was to be?
ROGER SMALL
Claremont