25 House Democrats call on Blinken to condemn Sheikh Jarrah evictions

Twenty-five House Democrats have signed onto a letter calling on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to condemn the looming evictions of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah.

The letter was co-sponsored by Illinois Rep. Marie Newman and Michigan Rep. Mark Pocan. It gained the signatures of Reps. Pramila Jayapal, Betty McCollum, Rashida Tlaib, Raul Grijalva, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Andre Carson, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, Cori Bush, Judy Chu, Ayanna Pressley, Bobby Rush, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Gerald Connolly, Jared Huffman, Peter Welch, Judy Chu, Alan Lowenthal, Veronica Escobar, Jackie Speier, Anna Eshoo, Chellie Pingree, Debbie Dingell and Hank Johnson.

According to Haaretz, the letter received far more support than originally expected, in the middle of a week when thousands of rockets have being fired at Israel from Gaza.

Twenty-five House Democrats signed a letter urging U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to publicly condemn the planned eviction of Palestinians from homes in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood on land claimed by Jewish settlers and exert diplomatic pressure on Israel to prevent the acts from taking place.

https://twitter.com/RepMarieNewman/status/1392558132954603524?s=20

The number of signatories on the letter, which has been circulated for nearly a week by Reps. Marie Newman and Mark Pocan, is significantly higher than what sources had been expecting, reflecting the steadily growing disapproval of the displacement plans within the Democratic Party.

“Palestinian families have every right to live safely in their homes. That’s why I’ve led my colleagues in a letter calling on the State Department to immediately condemn these heinous actions by the Israeli government against Palestinian families in East Jerusalem. America must defend human rights everywhere,” Newman says in a statement.

In their letter, the House Democrats call on the Biden administration to “immediately send the strongest diplomatic message to Israel to desist from its plans.”

Ultra-nationalist Jewish groups are seeking to oust dozens of Palestinian families from their homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood. The most imminent notice against four families sparked mass-protests in East Jerusalem late last month. The Supreme Court was slated to hold a hearing on the matter last Monday, which the state decided to delay due to concerns of violence and international pressure.

The Sheikh Jarrah evictions are based in part on a 1970 Israeli law that allows Jews to reclaim East Jerusalem land owned by Jews before 1948. No similar law exists for Palestinians who lost their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war and fled to what was then Jordanian-controlled territory. In fact, the Knesset passed a law in 1950 barring Palestinians from reclaiming property lost in the same war.

According to Ir Amim, a left-wing human rights group focusing on Jerusalem, around 200 families in East Jerusalem are under threat of eviction, with cases slowly moving through administrative bodies and Israeli courts. Around 70 of those families live in Sheikh Jarrah.

Also in the letter, the congress members speak out against Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes, urging the government to “send observers to document Israel’s forced displacement of Palestinians, including details on the military units involved in these operations and the usage of any US weapons for purposes of oversight and accountability regarding Leahy Law and Arms Export Control Act violations.”

Those legislative measures bar US military aid from being used for purposes other than self-defense.