VZCZCXRO3166
PP RUEHROV
DE RUEHJM #1325 2041118
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 221118Z JUL 08
FM AMCONSUL JERUSALEM
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2233
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/WHITE HOUSE NSC PRIORITY

UNCLAS JERUSALEM 001325 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
NEA FOR FRONT OFFICE. NSC FOR ABRAMS/SINGH/PASCUAL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KWBG PREL PHUM IS PBTS
SUBJECT: EAST JERUSALEM FAMILY FIGHTS EVICTION ORDER WITH 
PA, ACTIVIST SUPPORT 
 
REF: JERUSALEM 1257 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Muhammad and Fawziya al-Kurd told PolOff on his 
July 21 visit to their Shaykh Jarrah home that they will 
continue to resist an Israeli eviction order despite legal 
setbacks (reftel).  Fawziya said the family has been 
resisting Israeli efforts to remove them for two decades and 
will not move elsewhere, even if forced out by Israeli 
police.   Fawziya said she met with PA President Mahmud Abbas 
(Abu Mazen) on July 19 and receives daily visits from Abbas' 
Chief-of-Staff Rafiq Husseini and Jerusalem Advisor Adnan 
Husseini, and PM Salam Fayyad's Jerusalem Advisor Hatim Abd 
al-Qadr. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) PolOff observed 12 Israeli and international 
activists, including Arik Asherman, head of Rabbis for Human 
Rights, keeping vigil at the house to resist police who could 
execute the eviction order at any time. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶3.  (SBU) The al-Kurd eviction order has attracted press 
attention and PA support because it involves what 
Palestinians regard as a fundamental injustice in the 
treatment of Jerusalem property.  The GOI has often permitted 
settlers to take over Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem on 
the basis of historic Jewish ownership (it is not disputed 
that Jewish families lived in the neighborhood in the 1930s), 
but has never allowed Palestinians with clear property title 
to return to their West Jerusalem homes.  Palestinian 
contacts in Jerusalem view the al-Kurd family, who fled from 
their home in West Jerusalem's Talbiyah neighborhood in 1948 
and now are threatened with eviction from their East 
Jerusalem home, as a local symbol for Palestinian property 
rights. 
WALLES