Tel-Chai Nation

Nine Jewish families were able to buy homes in the mainly Arab/Muslim neighborhood of Silwan, known in Hebrew as Shiloach, and stood firm against foreign condemnations:

Three weeks after Border Police officers escorted seven Jewish families past Arab protesters into newly acquired homes in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, nine additional families moved into two buildings there during the early hours of Monday morning.

Depending on your view, president Rivlin didn't handle this properly:

Prior to the move, which has drawn international condemnation, President Reuven Rivlin on Sunday criticized such developments carried out under the cloak of night.

“It is our right to insist on building around Jerusalem, but it is our obligation to make sure that the decision is made by the authorities,” Rivlin said. “Our capital cannot be a city in which the building is done in secret, or where moving into apartments is done in the dead of night.”

And what does that mean, that Jews can't spend their own money as they wish? The argument this shouldn't have to be done in secret has meat to it, but if there's danger involved, then it's inevitable it would have to be done that way.

Daniel Luria, spokesman for Ateret Kohanim, a right-wing organization that works to create a Jewish majority in Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem, said his organization helped facilitate the move, adding that the properties had been acquired by a company called Kudram Ltd.

“The buildings were legally and officially acquired from Arabs, who received full and more-than-appropriate payment by an overseas company... that was established by Jewish investors from Israel and around the world,” Luria said in a statement.

He praised the ongoing moves into Silwan, known to many Jews as Kfar Hashiloah, as a rightful return of Israelis to a neighborhood originally established by Yemenite Jews in the 1880s.

“A thriving Yemenite village (also referred to as Kfar Hatemanim) existed in the area from 1882, when there were very few Arab homes,” he said. “At its peak the Yemenite village numbered 144 families, but unfortunately the village was decimated by Arab riots in the 1920s and 1930s.”

According to Luria, the new buildings are to be called Beit Frumkin, in memory of Rabbi Israel Dov Frumkin, who helped the original Yemenite Jews in the late 19th century, and Beit Ovadia, in memory of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, late mentor of the Shas party and a former Sephardi chief rabbi, due to its close proximity to his grave.

Interesting. A man who later became a defeatist, has a building dedicated to him right there, even as his followers continue to lead questionable policies.

This hasn't gone without violence, however: there was a riot yesterday:

Arab rioters hurled Molotov cocktails at an apartment building in a flashpoint Jerusalem neighborhood just hours after Jewish families moved in, police said Tuesday.

No one was injured in the incident in the Kfar Shiloach neighborhood (known as Silwan in Arabic) late on Monday, which saw a group of Palestinians firing flares and throwing petrol bombs at the building, a police statement said.

No serious damage was caused and no arrests were made.

The building was one of two structures housing 10 apartments that were purchased by Jews before dawn on Monday, sparking fierce opposition from Arab locals who oppose any Jewish presence in the area.

Even so, gasoline bombs are dangerous and the perpetrators must be found and arrested. To make matters worse, Mahmoud Abbas declared Arabs who sell homes to Jews will face hard labor, but it's clear they'd put them to death instead. Serious protection is needed for Arabs who want to sell property to Jews.

Labels: anti-semitism, dhimmitude, islam, Israel, Israeli Arabs, Jerusalem, jihad, political corruption, terrorism, United States