Left: Hanna Basharat with his family in front of the villa he built in Talbiya in #Jerusalem in 1926.
The Zionist Haganah militia took the villa in 1948
In 1960s, Israel's Foreign Minister Golda Meir lived in the villa.
In 1969 she said "There was no such thing as Palestinians"
2\ Hanna tried to reclaim his house in Israeli courts, but to no avail!
In the villa, lived #Israel's labor minister Mordechai Namir, then Foreign Minister Golda Meir, then Knesset Speaker Kadish Luz, Supreme Court Judge Zvi Berenson, & Finance Ministry official Shlomo Arazi.
3\ In 1977, Hanna's grandson Prof. George Bisharat attempted to visit the Jerusalem villa were his father Dr. Maurice was born.
He rang the doorbell & explained the story to the old Israeli woman that answered.
She shrugged "Your family never lived here."
His pain was compounded
4\ George hesitated to argue, lest she denies him entry. He felt anguish by the need to grovel & beg this stranger to let him enter his family's house.
Her husband soon came. It was Israeli Supreme Court Justice, Zvi Berenson.
He briefly allowed him to only see the living room.
5\ In 1958, then #Israel's Foreign Minister, Golda Meir, met with Dag Hammarskjöld, the UN Secretary-General in this very Bisharat villa.
Her security personnel tore down an inscription on the front of the house in Arabic to obscure the signs of Palestinian ownership & identity.
6\ Recently, the Israeli government put a plaque at the house to mark its uniqueness & importance.
It names the original Palestinian owner Hanna Bisharat, but it makes no mention that he was a Palestinian or how the house was taken from him!
7\ In 2011, James Snyder, the Director of Israel Museum gave a gleeful talk about how he found this & made it his home.
Again, no mention of how it was taken away from its original Palestinian owners.
PS. Correction: the picture to the left is Hanna Bisharat's family. To the right is Shukri Al-Jamal's family, owner of the house across the street from Hanna's. Both homes were taken over by Israel. h/t @EveningSends (Hanna's great grandson).
“I shall continue to struggle till the end of my life. You ask me about my future plans. I have none… Our Villa Harun ar-Rashid in Jerusalem has been stolen…”
- a powerful quote from Hanna & picture of him, courtesy of his great grandson @EveningSends
Today, you're going to hear a LOT of talking points to justify #Israel's forcible deportation of Palestinian lawyer @salah_hamouri from occupied East Jerusalem, which is possible war crime!
A quick🧵debunking these arguments & why his deportation sets a very dangerous precedent:
2\ First talking point: "Hamouri is a terrorist accused of plotting to assassinate a Rabbai."
In 2005, Hamouri was detained in prison for 3 years WITHOUT trial. He was given a choice in a MILLITARY TRIBUNAL: admit guilt & get 7 years, or maintain innocence & get 14 years!
3\ The 2005 indictment against Hamouri lacked physical evidence, weapons, intercepted letters, plan or phone taps. The only proof the prosecution could introduce consisted of testimonies, later retracted, given by other Palestinians that saw Hamouri walking past the Rabbi's home!
Netanyahu's casually saying here "We have... a record strong Jewish Lobby on our side."
The very term that @FranceskAlbs is now being accused of anti-Semitism for having used once a decade ago, although she recently said it was "analytically inaccurate & unintendedly offensive."
2\ Chuck Hagel, US secretary of Defense, once said "The political reality is… the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here."
Veteran diplomat Aaron Miller said the use of the term was "mistaken" but Hagel was not not antisemitic.
Major pro-Israel groups stayed neutral.
3\ During Chuck Hagel's nomination hearings, the @ADL's director wrote a piece explaining why the term "Jewish Lobby" is "so offensive" without calling Hagel biased or anti-Semitic a single time.
Left: Abla Dajani, 18, at her home in #Jerusalem in 1948
Right: Abla, now 92, walks past her old home like a stranger. It's been taken over by Israelis since 1948
"A lifetime of beautiful memories hit me with a force that took my breath away... [but] I was not allowed to enter"
2\ Abla's family fled to Egypt in 1948, thinking they would return in a few days.
Her father was allowed into the neighborhood a week later with a special permit he got through the Belgian ambassador, but only to visit, not return.
He found another family in their home.
3\ "All furniture & family belongings had been stolen, including the jewelry that my mom hid in the window shutters." Abla recalled, "The only things surviving the robbery were the family albums that I cherish till this day."
#Israel never allowed the family to claim their home.
A quick close-up analysis dismantles the #Israeli narrative of a #Palestinian attacking & attempting to steal an Israeli soldier's weapon:
Ammar Mufleh, 22, was fully unarmed & trying to make a run for his life from a soldier's chokehold before he was executed in cold blood!🧵
2\ Four enhanced screenshots from the footage show Ammar, whose face was fully covered in blood, being fully unarmed in the entire encounter with the #Israeli soldier, who had both an automatic rifle & pistol.
3\ When Ammar gets a full hold of the IDF soldier's rifle, he immediately throws it on the ground instead of using it against the soldier. (Frames 00:22-00:24 in the footage).
That's when the Israeli soldiers shoots Ammar four times in the chest & abdomen.