Tuesday, December 25

And in the mean time in Kfar Shalem.... 30 homeless families

Last the night the police arrested the men from Kfar Shalem. I never knew that preventive arrest was legal here. After all, they had (not) yet done a thing. So much for democracy. I alsways thought arrests could only be made after one has been declared a suspect of a crime actually committed!. But i suppose the police wanted to make certain their job would be easy today. After all, in the past when they came to carry out an eviction order, they killed one of the young men, who had climbed on the roof of his home, in order to prevent its destruction. The men was shot by the police. Point blank. I call it murder.
So they arrested the men. To make today's work easier i suppose.

Kfar Shalem is located in today's south Tel Aviv on the ruins of a Palestinian village, Kufr Salame. Kufr Salame was left in 1948 by its original inhabitants who were extradited. The naqbe, the catastrophe.

In the late forties - early fifties poor migrants were told to go there and live in the houses that stood empty. They settled in the houses, planted gardens , had children and slowly Kfar Shalem as it was now called, turned into a neighbourhood. A poor one, but a lively and happy one.

Then real estate developers became interested and, after a long, fruitless legal struggle, the people were ordered to move out. The land had been bought and they should find themselves somewhere else to live.

This morning the bulldozers arrived and thirty families, many with young children, became homeless.

I'm sure Ron the Ratty One is happy!
My heart is with the families of Kfar Shalem.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

All home evictions are sad,especially in this case of the Israeli Jewish families evicted in Kfar Shalem from the property owned by Ruma Efrati.

IMO the TA municipality,Israel Lands Administration and Amidar should provide alternative rental accomodation for the 30 families ,especially to those who were renting for decades.

Which reminds me hundreds of thousands of Mizrachi/Sephardic Jews are still awaiting compensation for the stealing of their property by the Arabs in Arab countries since 1947 ---- Akiva

yudit said...

I suppose that implies Israel will compensate the Palestinians for the lands and houses that have been stolen from them. Or perhaps return them to the rightful owners, the Palestinians?