There’s a lot going on right now in Israel-Palestine. Right-wing Jewish Israeli mobs are attacking Palestinians in cities like Lod and Haifa. Israel is bombing Gaza. Hamas is firing rockets into Israel. Just last week, Israeli police were attacking worshippers inside Al Aqsa mosque. This round of violence began in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
A number of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah are facing imminent eviction from their homes, to be replaced by Jewish settlers. Palestinian demonstrators in Sheikh Jarrah were met with overwhelming force from Israeli police. In this episode, Max Freedman speaks to Rasha Budeiri, whose parents are right in the middle of all this: they live in Sheikh Jarrah, in one of the homes threatened with displacement.
Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.
Spotify playlist: Unsettled essentials: May 2021
“Palestinians fear loss of family homes as evictions loom” (Joseph Krauss, Associated Press, 5/9/21)
“Tax-exempt U.S. nonprofits fuel Israeli settler push to evict Palestinians” (Alex Kane, The Intercept, 5/14/21)
Born and raised in Jerusalem, Palestine, Rasha Budeiri is a mother of two girls; ages 14 and 12. Rasha holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications and Sociology from Birzeit University in the West Bank. She worked with Palestinian communities through her employment at the United Nations for the Relief and Welfare of Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Jerusalem. After several years of working in the media and NGO fields in Jerusalem, she moved to Kuwait and continued to build on the knowledge and expertise in the communications and research fields. Rasha now resides in Ottawa, Canada.
In 1948, Rasha’s grandparents (Fouad and Badria Al-Dajani) were forcibly displaced from their house in Al-Baq'aa, south of Jerusalem by the occupying Israeli forces. As was the case for many Palestinian refugees, they moved to Jordan, then Syria, and back to Jerusalem where they lived in rental homes until 1956.
Through an agreement between the Jordanian Government and UNRWA in 1956, Rasha’s grandparents, along with 27 other Palestinian refugee families, were offered housing units in Karm Al-Jaouni, Sheikh Jarrah. In return, these families’ refugee status and benefits were revoked.
Raising their six kids at that house, Rasha’s grandfather passed away in 1977 and her grandmother in 1992. Their legacy and love to the place was passed down to her aunts, uncles, and grandchildren. Israeli forces are now in the process of confiscating Rasha’s grandparents' house and evicting her parents, who currently live in it.
TRANSCRIPT
MAX FREEDMAN: There’s a lot going on right now in Israel-Palestine.
MUSIC: “Emmit Sprak”
MAX: Right-wing Jewish Israeli mobs are attacking Palestinians in cities like Lod and Haifa. Israel is bombing Gaza. Hamas is firing rockets into Israel. Just last week, Israeli police were attacking worshippers inside Al Aqsa mosque.
Yousef Munayyer, former director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, tweeted this on Wednesday night. He said: “I'm trying to think of a moment when this broad a range of Palestinians have been exposed to this great a level of Israeli violence all at once since 1948 and I don't think I can.”
This round of violence — it started in Sheikh Jarrah.
A number of Palestinian families in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah are facing imminent eviction from their homes, to be replaced by Jewish settlers. Israeli police chose to respond to Palestinian demonstrations in Sheikh Jarrah with violence… and here we are.
For this episode, I spoke to a woman whose parents are right in the middle of all this: they live in Sheikh Jarrah, in one of the homes threatened with displacement.
My name is Max Freedman, and you’re listening to Unsettled.
MUSIC: Unsettled theme
MAX: Rasha Budeiri was born and raised in Jerusalem. After working for the UN’s Palestinian welfare agency, UNRWA, and other NGOs, she now lives in Ottawa, Canada. Her maternal grandparents’ home, where Rasha’s parents now live, is one of the houses currently facing displacement by Jewish Israeli settlers, backed by the state. I spoke to Rasha over Zoom on Wednesday morning, May 12.
MAX: Can you tell me about the house, how your family came to live in that house and what it was like to grow up there?
RASHA BUDEIRI: Of course. So just like hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families who were living in Palestine in 1948 when the Israeli occupying forces just took over the western side of Jerusalem in the 1948 territories, my grandparents were living in a neighborhood in the western side of Jerusalem. They had a house where my grandparents from my mother's side, my grandparents lived in a house. And in 1948, just like other Palestinian families, they had to flee. They lived in Damascus for a year, in Jordan for a year, and then came back to East Jerusalem, to the eastern side of Jerusalem, lived in their homes. And until 1956 and 1956, the Jordanian government and UNRWA gave twenty eight families, including my grandparents, the house which offered them to start again and build roots in Jerusalem. So these are refugee families. Some come from Jaffa, from Yaffa, from Haifa, from other locations.
RASHA: And fast forward the Jordanian side and under the war promised these families that within three years, in 1959, they would give them the title to and ownership of these homes. Unfortunately, with all the events that led up to the 1967 war and the Israeli occupation of the eastern side of Jerusalem and the West Bank, that it never came to fruition. And in 1972, there were two settler communities that basically falsified documents and said that the lands on which these homes are built belonged to Jews pre-1948. But according to to our due diligence and the research that we've done and our lawyer and researchers and historians who went to the Ottoman Empire archives and looked up these documents never found what would be traced back to a Jewish ownership. And although we really try to present these documents and these that are proof to the Israeli courts, they were dismissed. So you're talking about it's a multifaceted case, but at the end, it's a reflection of what occupation is all about.
RASHA: What I what I also want to mention is that what's happening to the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood is is not unique, it's not unique in the sense of the larger picture of occupation and then attempt to basically change the demographics in Jerusalem for the benefit of Jewish settlers. And a very important thing for your listeners. The case is brought forward by the U.S. based company. I don't know if you were aware. I don't know if your listeners are aware, but these settler committees sold their rights to a U.S. based Delaware based company, and that's the company, Nahalat Shimon is the one that is bringing these cases against us.
MAX: Can you describe the house physically, just like how many bedrooms. Yeah, what does it look like?
RASHA: Of course. The garden is actually bigger, larger than the house itself? As soon as you walk into their gates, you're you're welcomed by a long driveway. To the left. There's some olive trees, very Palestinian, and there's a swing to the left, flowers wherever you look. Then on the left side, there's a stone house like a brick, a brick house. That's my grandparents house. And it's small of the size. It has two bedrooms, a bathroom, a living space, the dining table, dining room. And yeah, it's, it's not that big of a house but it's our home.
MAX: I'm so just so I'm clear, did you did you live in that house as a child or it was your grandparents house still then and then.
RASHA: It was my grandparents house. My mom and dad currently live there. But just like I don't know if we're Arab communities, you spend more time in your grandparents house than you spend in yours because we have a big family. And that's where we would gather. My mom always made sure that she's visiting her mom. And like my grandma, I can still remember her face, her calm manner, always making sure that we all around her playing and goofing around. Yes. Just like any other family we would fight and we would shout and scream and but this is a house that was full of memories. My uncles made sure to cook for the family. My I remember all the fruits like until this day we have lemon trees, oranges. There's also grapes, blueberries.
RASHA: It was the place where we grew up, just being ourselves and being carefree and being kids, doing what kids do, run and chase and cry and fall down and then stand up and and have long nights where we were like, I remember my sister telling horror stories. And like, these are memories that will never go away, whether they take the house or not. These are the kind of memories. These are the kind of roots that we have to the place and I. I hope I hope that we will still be able to cherish these memories. And build more.
MAX: How is your mom doing? How did it how yeah, how is your mom doing, how she's holding up in the middle of all of this?
RASHA: She's being the mom I knew all all this time she's. She's strong. Of course, her heart aches. But every time we talk to her, every time we bring this up, she's she's holding up just like an olive tree, I would say. I don't know how to explain it. She's she gives us strength, to be honest. Her resilience.
RASHA: It was it was such an emotional Ramadan this year where my mom hosted a few iftars at our house. But in my head, I could not stop thinking, is this the last Ramadan where my mom can host these kind of meals? And I was like, I would shake that off and say, no, don't think about that. We keep doing what we're doing.
RASHA: My mom also makes sure to host people in this house, sits in the garden, she spends her time now teaching Arabic to foreigners, including diplomats and and people who know what this house means to my mom, to her family. To now us as her grandchildren. So. I honestly take my strength from her. She keeps sending us photos and videos from the place, but she also keeps telling us, don't lose hope.
MAX: Now, you you mentioned that Sheikh Jarrah is not unique. So I guess why do you think that clearly what's happening in Sheikh Jarrah has triggered a whole lot of other events, which is a nice way of putting it. Why? Why now? Why there?
RASHA: Why, of course, the case against the Sheikh Jarrah homes It did bring attention because the decision to displaced people, the owners of those homes was very imminent. When I say it's not unique to Sheikh Jarrah because there are similar demolition orders against houses in the Silwan neighborhood also another neighborhood in the eastern side of Jerusalem. So you look at these places, these are strategic locations. Because once you take these important neighborhoods, you're changing the face of Jerusalem. You're changing the facts on the ground. You are emptying Jerusalem out of its indigenous Palestinian members and people and bringing in settlers. Why it's also important in the larger context? Because we keep saying a two state solution, a future viable Palestinian capital, that's not going to happen. If you take Sheikh Jarrah, you take Jerusalem and you take that away as a potential like. Sheikh Jarrah, it is a ten minute walk from the Old City, from the Al-Aqsa Mosque, from the Dome of the Rock, from the Holy Sepulchre. It is it's our strategic neighborhood. And once that's gone. I don't think a possibility for a future Palestinian state will be in the horizon.
MUSIC: “Emmit Sprak”
RASHA: It is very important for the American audiences to understand that a lot of their money, the hard earned tax money, is being used, unfortunately, to empower the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Crimes are being committed in their name when the bullet is being used and the arms and the weapons and everything that we're seeing, all the atrocities that we're seeing from the Israeli occupying forces. Unfortunately, three point eight billion US dollars every year is being handed to the Israeli government and empower their occupation of Palestine. So it is very important for people to know that. It's very important for people to refuse that. If you want to stand with justice, if you want to do something about the situation, there is something that you can do. Do not accept this to go on and on and on and in your name. I know what the American people, how hardworking they are and how how how how uneasy it is to to live from paycheck to paycheck. And then just imagine a chunk of that just to take it away from your paycheck goes to militarize the Israeli government and the Israeli state and crimes are being committed in your name. I don't want to be that. If I was in your shoes, I don't want my money to be a part of all of the atrocities that are taking place on a daily basis. And that's why I am telling you, if you want to stop it, you can't stop it because that money should be spent on medical care, on your schools, on your infrastructure and on fighting poverty. I want that money to stay in the U.S. for U.S. people. We don't want to see it being used in bullets against my own people.
RASHA: So I do hope that people keep trying to be educated about the situation. Read. There are a lot of resources out there. Follow the Save Sheikh Jarrah hashtag on social media to learn more. Speak up. Speak out. Do let your members of Congress and your representatives let them be aware that you're not happy with the situation and that you don't want your money to be used to kill Palestinians. These are important steps. And we're very fortunate to have, I think social media now despite all the attempts to put us down and put our posts down. But we keep trying and there are people who are committed to making sure that our voices are heard. So thank you Max for the opportunity. And I hope that the next time we speak things will will be will be different.
MAX: Yeah. Inshallah.
RASHA: Inshallah.
MUSIC: “Emmit Sprak”
MAX: Rasha’s mom, Samira Dajani, was recently interviewed by the Associated Press about their family home. You can find a link to that article in the show notes.
Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Ilana Levinson, and me, Max Freedman. Our theme music is by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions.
We’ve been producing interviews and documentaries about Israel-Palestine for almost four years — so we’ve taken a few episodes from our back catalog that directly speak to some of what’s happening right now and put them in a Spotify playlist. You can find a link to that playlist in the show notes, and I hope you’ll share with friends and family members who are looking for more information and context and storytelling as the violence continues to escalate.