As Israel's genocidal campaign against Palestinians continues, so does the theft of Palestinian land. Real estate events that sell off illegal settlements acquired through settler violence in the West Bank happen in the U.S. with the aid and permission from local elected leaders.
On Sunday June 23rd there was a sale of Palestinian land in Los Angeles, California. The promotional materials included a photograph that looked a lot like Gaza’s shores. According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that fits the image of Zionists wanting to clear out the land for more settlers – an ethnic cleansing operation of murder and starvation against the entire population of Gaza and the West Bank.
Although the sale was held at Adas Torah synagogue, the event was not a worship service. It was a venue that was hosting the My Home in Israel real estate agency which promotes prospective home ownership in Israel (occupied Palestine).
Yet, pro-Palestinian protesters at the real estate event were met with violence from zionists while the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) stood by and offered them no protection. The corporate media vilified the protesters and inaccurately labeled them as anti-semitic terrorists preventing worship in a synagogue. The Zionists present attacked media as well. An open letter by the human rights group, Unmute Humanity, encouraged CBS News to end its complicity in the lies and distortion of events: “Contrary to your report, the peaceful demonstrators, which included Palestinian and many Jewish community members advocating for the basic human rights of Palestinians, were not blocking the synagogue. Instead, they were brutally attacked by a pro-Israel mob explicitly calling for the genocide of Palestinians. This included people being forcefully pushed, sprayed with mace, verbally assaulted, and harassed as they were followed to their cars. Ample video documentation supports these claims.”
The real estate event hosted by the synagogue advertised land sales in Palestine through My Home in Israel. This organization is notorious for supporting illegal settlements, not only here in Los Angeles, but nationally in the U.S. and internationally. The occupation in Palestine took effect in 1948, and for the past 75 years the occupation has grown more complete with settlements and theft of Palestinian homes.
On its website, My Home in Israel brags about the astronomical rise in home prices, “Israel’s housing market has seen a significant shift, with the number of new homes sold reverting to levels last seen five years ago, yet at prices that are 40% higher … Overall, 23,250 new homes were sold in the first quarter of 2024 … The market’s return to five-year-old sales figures, coupled with a significant rise in prices, highlights the dynamic nature of Israel’s housing market as it adapts to changing economic conditions and demand.”
That “dynamic nature” of economic conditions and demand are exactly what was planned. According to a United Nations report on March 8, as of September 2023 there were approximately 700,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
“The West Bank is already in crisis. Yet, settler violence and settlement-related violations have reached shocking new levels, and risk eliminating any practical possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian state,” U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk said. Turk stated that the use of settlements on occupied land amounted “to a war crime under international law.”
Those shocking levels of Israeli violence took off in the year prior to September 2023, just about one month before the united Al Aqsa Flood military response by a united Palestinian force, including Hamas, began on October 7th. Another UN report stated that violence from Israeli settlers had displaced over 1,100 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since 2022. The report documented approximately three settler-related incidents per day resulting in the emptying of five Palestinian communities, six were rendered half-empty and seven more have lost a quarter of their population.
Peace Now is an Israeli rights group that monitors illegal Israeli settlement expansion. The group noted that Israeli land seizures in the Palestinian territory this year are the greatest, by far. “The size of the area designated for declaration is the largest since the Oslo Accords, and the year 2024 marks a peak in the extent of declarations of state land. Since the beginning of 2024, Israel has declared 23,700 dunams (acres) of the West Bank as State Lands.”
Once property is designated as state land, Israel no longer recognizes it as privately owned by Palestinians. Regarding the land theft declaration on June 25th, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also holds a position in the Defense Ministry stated on social media, “Building the good country and thwarting the establishment of a Palestinian state. MTA is meeting this morning to approve over 5,000 housing units,” he wrote, using an acronym for The Higher Planning Council.
The ad in the Jewish Journal for the Los Angeles event on June 23rd states, “Come and meet representatives of housing projects in all the best Anglo neighborhoods in Israel.” – the use of “Anglo” with the implication of better neighborhoods is fitting for a country that practices apartheid, white supremacy and genocide.
“My Home in Israel” real estate events are also happening on the east coast as well. The PAL (Palestinian Assembly for Liberation) Law Commission, filed cease and desist letters to the real estate company that hosted My Home In Israel events and to the synagogues that rented the company space. The tour visited Teaneck, New Jersey, Lawrence, New York, Brooklyn, New York, and Toronto and Montreal in Canada.
Lamis Deek, an attorney with the PAL Law Commission, filed complaints with the Attorneys General of New York and New Jersey requesting that these sales events cease, as they are in violation of international law. "Imagine seeing your family’s lands being sold online while you helplessly watch, this stirs a rage and a pain that is indescribable It’s an injustice that should shock the conscience and mobilize authorities and attorneys to action.”
One week after the June 23rd real estate event by My Home in Israel, over 20 organizations including Jewish, Palestinian, human rights and anti-racist organizations demanded that LA City Council members vote against a resolution that was introduced by Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky that would provide $1 million of public funds to racist Zionist vigilante groups such as Magen Am that are composed of former IDF and US military soldiers. Magen Am boasts of its law enforcement connections, “If, G-d forbid, an incident occurs that requires immediate attention, Magen Am is able to push it all the way up the chain of command. We have direct connections at the FBI and Local law enforcement, including the LAPD, Sheriff’s Department, DA’s office and the US Attorney’s office.” The action or rather inaction of the LAPD on June 23rd confirmed that Magen Am’s claims of law enforcement support were quite credible.
The proposal was supposed to provide funding to protect pro-Israel Zionists from violence but the reality is that even mainstream media outlets have clearly reported that the majority of the violence that took place at the UCLA encampment in May and at the Adas Torah Palestinian land auction event was clearly committed by pro-Israel counter protestors.
According to the Los Angeles Times the proposal by the council member was intended to mirror Governor Gavin Newsom’s California State Nonprofit Security Grant Program. While funding from Newson’s program won’t be available until the fall, Yaroslavsky’s proposal would have expedited funding. After protest of the plan, the Councilwoman modified the proposal to provide protection for all houses of worship, but increased the funding proposal from $1 million to $2 million.
Mayor Karen Bass immediately vilified pro-Palestinian protesters for simply protesting against genocide and labeled their actions as “anti-semitism.” Additionally Bass appeared at the Simon Wiesenthal Center with a further condemnation and promises of public funding. .
Black misleadership politics was in full effect after June 23rd. It is especially sad when Black politicians do not remember that our history in the U.S. is a long history of the theft of our land, enforced by Jim Crow’s twisted legality, which looks like Israeli apartheid and the Zionist vigilantes that Biden, Bass and Newsom want to hire to keep us silent.
But the action at City Hall sent that proposal packing to another day. Bass and her colleagues will have to answer to the people. We won't be silent.
John Parker is the coordinator of the Harriet Tubman Center For Social Justice In Los Angeles and a leading member of the Socialist Unity Party . He accompanied former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark on many anti-war delegations abroad. Parker was only 18 when he organized his first union election--at a small steel plant in New Jersey. Having authored a $15 minimum wage ballot initiative in 2014, his organizing efforts helped to push the city to act on the minimum wage increase proposals in Los Angeles. John Parker is a member of the Black Alliance for Peace.
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