Walaja: Between the Wall and City Hall
Politics Uploaded: 20/06/2022 Duration: 6:42 Minutes Available in Hebrew
Story
Last week, the Israeli Supreme Court demonstrated its legal and moral responsibility towards the residents of the village of Walaja, meeting an obvious obligation: a permanent home for everyone--not only Israeli-Jews.
Walaja is a hostage of an impossible political reality that the State of Israel is running on the backs of its residents. On one hand, it is a village--one part in control of the Palestinian Authority, the other part controlled by Israel. It is also a neighborhood in Jerusalem--a neighborhood that the Jerusalem Municipality carefully ignores. And while the Jerusalem Municipality ignores the neighborhood, the State of Israel ignores the existence of the people.
400 women, men, girls and boys get up every morning with a demolition order hanging over 38 homes--about a third of the village houses. This morning, the Supreme Court announced to the State that it should respect and resolve this ongoing abuse of people's lives.
The hearing took place on Land Day--a day of national rage of the Palestinian people. 54 years have passed since the demonstration that has become a national symbol for the Palestinian citizens, and the demonstration is as relevant as ever.
In 1975, the state decided to expropriate about 20,000 dunams of private land in the Galilee, the Triangle area and the Negev. Why? Simply because the State could. We called it "Development of the Galilee," and transferred thousands of dunams from the villages of Nahaf, Deir al-Assad, and Bana to the construction of the city of Carmiel.
It is time to stop the policy of discrimination and the continuing violation of citizens' rights. Language: Hebrew, Arabic
Walaja is a hostage of an impossible political reality that the State of Israel is running on the backs of its residents. On one hand, it is a village--one part in control of the Palestinian Authority, the other part controlled by Israel. It is also a neighborhood in Jerusalem--a neighborhood that the Jerusalem Municipality carefully ignores. And while the Jerusalem Municipality ignores the neighborhood, the State of Israel ignores the existence of the people.
400 women, men, girls and boys get up every morning with a demolition order hanging over 38 homes--about a third of the village houses. This morning, the Supreme Court announced to the State that it should respect and resolve this ongoing abuse of people's lives.
The hearing took place on Land Day--a day of national rage of the Palestinian people. 54 years have passed since the demonstration that has become a national symbol for the Palestinian citizens, and the demonstration is as relevant as ever.
In 1975, the state decided to expropriate about 20,000 dunams of private land in the Galilee, the Triangle area and the Negev. Why? Simply because the State could. We called it "Development of the Galilee," and transferred thousands of dunams from the villages of Nahaf, Deir al-Assad, and Bana to the construction of the city of Carmiel.
It is time to stop the policy of discrimination and the continuing violation of citizens' rights. Language: Hebrew, Arabic