Arab Family Evicted From Jewish-Owned Property. World Loses Its Mind

A little bit of fact and logic checking on the eviction of the Sub Laban family from a stolen property in Jerusalem’s Old City.

By Ryan Jones | | Topics: Jerusalem, Media Bias
The entirely legal eviction of Arab squatters from a Jerusalem property was an ideal opportunity for Israel-haters to spread their false narrative of "ethnic cleansing." Photo by Jamal Awad/Flash90
The entirely legal eviction of Arab squatters from a Jerusalem property was an ideal opportunity for Israel-haters to spread their false narrative of "ethnic cleansing." Photo by Jamal Awad/Flash90

Anywhere else it’d be a non-story. The mundane eviction of a family of squatters who refused to pay rent. But when it happens in Jerusalem, and the evicted squatters are Arabs, then the world is in an uproar.

The international media is aghast over Tuesday’s removal of an Arab family from a house in Jerusalem’s Old City where they had been living for the past half century.

Online and in print, they are eagerly parroting Palestinian claims that this is part of a broader and diabolical scheme to “Judaize” the city.

For Israel, it’s a simply real estate legal battle.

FACT CHECK: During British rule, Kollel Galicia, a group that collected funds in Eastern Europe for Jewish families in Jerusalem, owned the property in question. When Jordan conquered the Old City of Jerusalem and annexed it in 1948, it placed the house and all other “abandoned” Jewish properties under a “General Custodian.” That entity then moved Arab families into the seized Jewish homes.

Ever since Israel regained control of the Old City in 1967, Kollel Galicia has been contesting the right of the Sub Laban family to remain in the property rent-free. Israel’s Supreme Court took 45 years (!) to consider the evidence, and earlier this year finally ruled that the Sub Laban family could no longer remain rent-free in the property and that it would revert to its original owners.

But for Israel’s detractors, the facts don’t matter, and you can always count on them going to outrageous, nonsensical extremes. In this case, they uniformly portrayed the eviction of the Sub Laban family as an act of “ethnic cleansing.”

LOGIC CHECK: If Israel is on a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem, then it’s really bad at it, and there’s nothing to worry about. A single family evicted among hundreds of thousands of local Arabs? That’s less than a drop in the bucket. At this rate it’ll take Israel a thousand years to remove all the Arabs from Jerusalem.

We all know of course that it’s not really ethnic cleansing. That’s just a convenient slur Israel’s haters sling to gain headlines.

As Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a Research Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, pointed out, “cleaning means killing or deportation.” That’s not what happened here. The Sub Laban family is free to “move into any other residential unit in Jerusalem,” though the landlords there will probably also insist that the rent be paid on time.

And another point: Does being a “Palestinian” Arab give someone permission to break the law? That’s essentially what all those people around the world now losing their minds over this are telling the Palestinians. “Go ahead, break the law (and squatting is illegal in almost every country, not just Israel), force Israel to engage in basic law enforcement so we can protest against her!”

Local Arabs are being used as pawns by an Israel-hating world.

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3 responses to “Arab Family Evicted From Jewish-Owned Property. World Loses Its Mind”

  1. Mark Watkins says:
    July 13, 2023 at 6:24 pm

    Therein is the rub, the world has already lost its mind, this is why we are where we are today, hasatan is doubling down on antisemitism, he thinks in his carnal delusion he will catch Elohim in a Lie…. He is in for a rude awakening for his day is drawing near to his hopping off point because of what Yeshua did on Har Golgatha, through the precious blood of the Lamb… Ani Modeh l’kha Yeshua!

  2. John Taylor says:
    July 13, 2023 at 9:12 pm

    Ryan, Do you have any knowledge about how many Jews bought land in the Holy Land before WW I and the total acreage and/or city lots acquired? I once read a comment by Daniel Pipes that Israel didn’t acquire their land by war or other common means—they bought it!

    • Ryan Jones says:
      July 14, 2023 at 8:52 am

      I don’t have exact figures, but it is true that various different Jewish trusts, most notably the JNF, did indeed purchase enormous portions of the land, often for inflated prices.

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