Justice minister claims Bible gives Israel “legal right” to Palestinian city

Nora Barrows-Friedman Rights and Accountability 10 January 2017

Israel has wasted no time accelerating Palestinian displacement during the first 10 days of 2017.

On Tuesday, Israel’s justice minister Ayelet Shaked invoked biblical mythology to advocate for expanded Israeli Jewish colonization in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.

“This place was bought by patriarch Abraham for its full price, the first deed of sale of its type in the world, so we have both historical and legal right to this place,” she said in a short videotaped speech during a visit to the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron.

She dismissed recent “legal arguments” that have been raised concerning settlement construction and expansion, especially from the United Nations.

Shaked also declared in Hebron that “the excuses” for freezing settlement construction are over as soon as US President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in, according to The Jerusalem Post.

“[We] need to build and build,” she proclaimed, adding that Israeli settlement expansion in East Jerusalem as well as the rest of the West Bank “is our right,” the Post reports.

Shaked, who has advocated for the genocide of Palestinians, denies that Israel is an occupier and has suggested that millions of Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank be pushed under Jordanian jurisdiction.

Destroying Palestinian homes

Meanwhile, about 80 miles north, a fleet of bulldozers destroyed 11 homes belonging to Palestinian citizens of Israel.

The demolitions led the mayor of Qalansawa, a city in present-day Israel, to announce his resignation in protest that he doesn’t “have the power to change anything,” according to the Ma’an News Agency.

For decades, Israeli authorities “refused … to approve the city’s master plan,” Ma’an adds. Its Palestinian residents attempted to stop the demolitions but were met with force by Israeli police.

A resident described the home demolitions as part of Israel’s policies of “oppression, injustices, and displacement,” Ma’an reports.

Also on Tuesday in the West Bank, Israeli forces raided the town of al-Zawiya and delivered stop-construction and demolition notices to three Palestinian households and a printing company, according to Ma’an.

Demolition orders were also given to residents in the nearby village of Burqin on Sunday. Israeli settlements are rapidly expanding in the area.

In the first week of 2017, Israeli occupation authorities in Jerusalem demolished two homes belonging to Palestinians, part of a surge in demolitions that left more than 150 Palestinians homeless across the West Bank in a few days.

With translation by Dena Shunra. Editor’s note: The number of homes demolished in Qalansawa was 11, not 10 as reported in a previous version of this post. The number has been corrected.

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Comments

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mark conley replied on

The 'evil one' bases her claims on the historical existence of the Patriarch Abraham (Abram).
This has never been verified. They are mythical religious figures used to justify so many injustices throughout history.

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Rezan replied on

Really aylat shakes? The Bible must be a pretty cruel piece of work written by greedy bullies like you. You are not one if those jews of the Bible. you are East European and white. the Jews of the Bible were black and Semitic . Just like Nasser of Egypt addressing Israelis, remarked once : We dont recognise you" he said. "You left black and came back white"!

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Mary Hughes replied on

Yeah, right. I bought a house in Los Angeles so I guess that means every other house and park and building in L.A. belong to me. Y'all better just pack up and leave or I'll have to hurt you.

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mostafa replied on

Abraham was the father of two boys , and the rightful heir to the land is being occupied by his brother. She's only half right. Additionally legal and religion are contradictions of each other; the Bible is not a legally binding document, and has no say on the distribution of land. But only Israel can have a Justice Minister who is intolerant of Justice.

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brad roon replied on

So - let's pretend we are talking about Europe here. There were older versions of several of the nations there - Poland, French territorial changes, Spain - heck, Spain was held by the Moors for centuries, but we don't see any Moorish descendants claiming ownership of the beautiful works that were erected there by their ancestors. We don't see the USA handing the descendants of the original natives back their lands. We don't see Cossacks claiming to own the Russian Steppes....

So how come everyone pretends this argument has any validity or logic to it in this one instance???

Nora Barrows-Friedman

Nora Barrows-Friedman's picture

Nora Barrows-Friedman is a staff writer and associate editor at The Electronic Intifada, and is the author of In Our Power: US Students Organize for Justice in Palestine (Just World Books, 2014).