Full Judaisation of East Jerusalem is Happening Now.

JVL Introduction

This morning (June 1st), I received an email from BT’Selem, a leading Israeli human rights organisation about the ongoing expulsions from Silwan, in East Jerusalem. This forms the first part of the post below and relates to the escalation of evictions and how much closer Israel is to ethnically cleansing Palestinians from this area, which was illegally annexed in 1967.  The rest is the linked article on the same topic from a few weeks ago that additionally looks at the mechanisms by which this “trick” is done to render evictions “legal”.

In May 2017, I spent 3 days in Batan Al Hawa, which is the focus for these posts. I went as part of a 150 strong Centre for Jewish Nonviolence delegation. I witnessed heavily armed soldiers walking through these streets to protect Jewish settlers who had taken over Palestinian homes; I helped to clear a family’s garden as they could not access their home other than by climbing onto rooftops with a huge ladder, lowering it and accessing their home through the back door. . Eventually it became impossible to continue with shopping, children, etc and so they had been forced to leave their home and garden. They then came under enormous pressure and multiple complaints from settlers because their garden was overgrown. We then collected the long ladder then clambered to the rooftops with it to access and clear the garden.

I also heard about soldiers entering a local primary school, removing two young boys aged about ten and about how this terrified their classmates, who told us this on their return from school and how terrified they had been when, the next evening, soldiers raided the youth and community centre where they were playing (and which we were painting).  At the celebration to mark the end of our time with them and to thank us for our work, I remember the leader’s determination, in the face of these “ordinary” dreadful experiences, that the children of Batan Al Hawa should know that the conditions they were enduring were due to the Israeli regime and not the fault of Jews and it was to keep the children from hate that he felt it important to welcome us and to work with Israeli groups opposed to the occupation.

We are hearing little enough about Gaza now and even less about this “legalised” form of ethnic cleansing. The need for our government to take a stand is not only about the horrors meted out in Gaza and increasingly Lebanon but the overall programme of repression and injustice experienced by the Palestinians under Israel’s control. This is an important and sobering read, together with short embedded videos.

LL

This article was originally published by BT'Selem on Mon 1 Jun 2026. Read the original here.