The U.S. still plans to build the Jerusalem embassy on Palestinian land.
by Jessica Buxbaum, MintPress News
Former President Donald Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem was met with widespread international condemnation. Yet, despite rejecting Trump’s extremist politics, President Joe Biden is pushing forward with the embassy move and constructing a compound atop stolen Palestinian land.
This month, human rights groups called on Biden’s administration to end plans to build the U.S. Jerusalem Embassy on private Palestinian property. Adalah, The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel and the Center for Constitutional Rights sent a letter to the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Thomas Nides. The organizations argued that continuing with Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem violates international law, specifically given Jerusalem’s special status as a city whose sovereignty is undetermined. The letter was written on behalf of several Palestinian families who would have inherited the land where the U.S. Embassy would be constructed if Israel had not illegally confiscated it.
According to records found in the Israeli State Archives and published by Adalah in July, the land in question was owned by Palestinian families and leased to British Mandate authorities before Israel’s establishment in 1948.
Israel seized the land using its 1950 Absentees’ Property Law, which stipulates that property abandoned — even due to expulsion — during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War now belongs to Israel. This legislation is one of Israel’s primary tools in stripping land from Palestinian refugees, including being used in infamous cases such as ongoing dispossession efforts in Sheikh Jarrah.
Recent Posts
Will Youth Prisons Be Found Only in History Books?
Take Action Now At least two-thirds of youth prisons and jails have been shut down. This is an enormous, dramatic, positive development in an era…
Why are Democratic Leaders Still Ignoring Voters on Israel?
Take Action Now Decisions at the latest Democratic National Committee meeting emphasized the disconnect between the party’s leadership and its base……
DNC Chair Ken Martin’s Broken Promises Haunt his Tenure and the Party
Take Action Now Martin ran for chair on a platform that emphasized his commitment to transparency and to getting big money out of Democratic Party…
Apologies to All The People in Lebanon
Take Action Now It bears thinking that the world needs to apologize to Lebanon and to Palestine as the genocide by Israel grinds on from Gaza City to…