We’re Not Squatters

Since receiving the evacuation orders, Yoni Yochanan’s time is dedicated to achieving one goal: to prove that the inhabitants of Lifta are the lawful owners of their homes, and that they are legally entitled to receive appropriate remuneration, which will enable them to find alternative, respectable housing after the evacuation.

“My parents fought here and suffered here,” says Yoni. “After the Six Day War, we hoped we would finally have some peace and quiet. But the evacuation orders shattered our lives. We’ve been living here for 60 years and now they label us ‘squatters’?

“If indeed we are ‘trespassers,’ how is it possible that the Israel Land Authority has been so negligent for the past 60 years and overlooked this ‘illegal occupancy,’ which is clearly seen by anybody going in or out of Jerusalem on Highway 1? Our addresses are registered by the Ministry of Interior as our legal addresses. All our mail is delivered to our addresses in Lifta, including government mail demanding our payments of taxes. How is it possible that they weren’t aware of this throughout all those years?”

Yoni isn’t alone in voicing his anger and frustration. Boaz Sando, who came to Eretz Yisrael from Kurdistan, is one of the oldest residents who was brought to Lifta by the Jewish Agency and still alive. He can attest that it was the government’s representatives who made the new immigrants settle in the village. When he discusses the evacuation, his eyes are filled with fire and anger.

“We were thrown to the dogs. The horrendous living conditions were indescribable. Nobody helped us in any way, nor paid any attention to us. And now they want to kick us out of here?”

The Fight Begins

When Yoni Yochanan and the other Lifta residents decided to fight the evacuation orders, they didn’t fathom what was in store for them. “We went to court,” he says. “I wanted to show them the documents proving that Israel Land Authority together with Amidar Development Authority made the new immigrants settle in Lifta. But I was told there were no such documents. I said to myself: How can that be? Did my parents lie? I felt as if the government was trying to hide the truth to avoid acting justly, to hush us so we wouldn’t speak up.”

Determined to find those documents, Yoni started visiting various archives, eventually spending thousands of hours in research. “I’ve researched the Municipal Archives, the Zionist Archives, the State Archives, and the Jewish Agency Archives in Tzrifin. I’ve read any document which might shed light on this pitiful affair. I’ve scanned with my own eyes tens of thousands of documents. It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack.”

Slowly but surely important documents were discovered. Most of them were typed on old-fashioned typewriters and written in a somewhat archaic Hebrew. For example, this memo: “Comrade Zimmerman is to open the warehouse (of the Jewish Agency) and supply blankets, mattresses, dishes, etc., to the poor immigrants who have just arrived from Yemen and later from Kurdistan, and had to be settled somewhere.”?Another important piece of information was an article in the daily newspaper Maariv, written in 1963. The reporter, Aharon Dolav, explained why the government purposely avoided arranging the legal ownership of the homes by the residents: “After 12 years since the establishment of Jewish Lifta, its inhabitants are still exempt from paying rent. The Housing and Development Authority prefers to ignore the dilapidated homes in Lifta.”

Dolav toured the half-ruined homes and was horrified by the terrible living conditions. He wrote: “Paying rent necessitates a legal contract. A legal contract is equal to acknowledging the rights of the tenants. Rights also involve obligations. Add to that formula a municipality which does not collect taxes — in short, a municipality which in reality prefers to ignore the neighborhood and not provide it with any municipal services or benefits.”

An early affidavit submitted by Lifta residents confirms Dolav’s observations: “The immigrants did not pay any rent nor any purchase fees until 1977, due to the dilapidated state of the homes, as the cost of repairing and renovating the homes would have been far higher than the accumulated rent for the homes.”

Another official document Yoni found stated that a resident who resides in a home without a contract, yet is able to prove that he has been residing there prior to April 15, 1953, is entitled to sign a contract regarding that home without having to pay an “Allowance Fee.”

“We have resided in our homes since 1951,” says Yoni. “All the documents prove that the Jewish Agency’s Department of Absorption settled new immigrants from Yemen in the Lifta homes in the years 1948-1949. The village had become ‘Abandoned Property’ under Israeli law and was under the jurisdiction of the Custodian of Abandoned Property. During the years 1961 and 1963 the Jewish Agency’s Department of Absorption continued to settle in Lifta additional immigrants from Kurdistan. How is it possible that on the one hand, the government — namely the Jewish Agency — was settling residents in homes, and on the other hand, the Israel Land Authority claims these settlers are ‘squatters’?”

Perusing the documents from the late ’40s and early ’50s revealed another interesting point: At the very same time that the Yemenite immigrants were forced to settle in Lifta, the higher echelon in the government, as well as court judges and Hebrew University professors, were granted permission to settle in the abandoned Arab homes in Katamon. These homes were also under the jurisdiction of the Custodian of Abandoned Property, and those settling in them did so without ever purchasing them. Yet, the Katamon residents are not labeled “squatters.”

“How is it possible,” asks Yoni, “that in Katamon ownership of homes was properly arranged, while the rights of the Lifta residents were ignored? Do you understand what this means? The prestigious neighborhoods in the heart of Jerusalem were given to the higher echelons, while the neighborhoods near the borders were settled by new immigrants, mainly from the Middle East, and the government representatives conveniently ‘forgot’ to provide them with the necessary legal ownership forms.”

Live Security Fence

In 1963 the State Comptroller investigated the state of affairs in Lifta. He demanded that a special government committee arrange for the transfer of legal ownership of the homes to the residents, and/or decide upon alternative housing options. He further recommended, “This must be done as soon as possible.” Yet, no one ever took these recommendations seriously, nor was there any follow up concerning this issue. In addition, the residents were never privy to other recommendations submitted in the following years, including one which stated that the residents would be given the first priority to purchase their homes in case the Israel Land Authority decided to ask them to leave.

While rummaging through the dusty archive documents, Yoni discovered that the government had a vested interest in preserving this state of affairs, where the lawful ownership of the homes was not legally arranged, yet the residents weren’t required to evacuate the place. What was the reason?

Until 1967, Lifta, like Musrara in the east of Jerusalem, was a border neighborhood. The neighborhoods’ residents were a ‘live security fence,’ for the rest of Jerusalem, separating the Jewish neighborhoods from the Arabs. After the liberation of Jerusalem in the Six Day War, neighborhoods like Musrara and Yemin Moshe became centrally and prestigiously located; their value increased exponentially, and with it came the pressure to evacuate the original residents.

In the case of Musrara, the residents fought the authorities and won their legal battle. Would that legal precedent hold true for Lifta, which is today sitting on valuable real estate?

When real estate developers wanted to demolish Lifta a few years ago and build luxury residences — and do it without compensating the residents, who they said were “squatters” — Yoni took his case to Israel’s Supreme Court.

“They said that years ago the residents were asked to arrange the lawful ownership of their homes. Where did the government inform us about it? In our synagogue, where everyone could hear it? Or perhaps in the local grocery store? No way. Believe it or not, they put the announcement in an ad in the leftist Hebrew daily newspaper Davar.

“Did they really think any of these new immigrants were reading Davar? My parents barely knew about newspapers, let alone about the official newspaper of the ruling Labor party. But they claim that if the residents didn’t see that ad it’s their fault.”

After Yoni took his case to the Supreme Court, the Attorney General wrote in reply: “A new committee was convened by Israel Land Authority, whose task is to clarify the issue. The goal is to legalize the rights of the immigrants who were settled in Israel in the late ‘40s and early ’50s. New trespassers will not be included in these arrangements.” Based on this government response, Judge Yoram Danziger advised Yoni to cancel his lawsuit, as he believed the committee might indeed provide the settlers with a satisfactory solution to their plight. If that would not be the case, Yoni had the right to apply again to the Supreme Court.

“Can you guess what happened?” asks Yoni. “Zero! The committee was never convened.”

The lawsuit went back to the Supreme Court, where presiding Judge Malka Aviv ruled: “Whatever the claims of each litigant are, it seems there is a universal agreement that at least some of the defendants have been living in Lifta for many years. Accordingly, they deserve to be judged favorably rather than unfavorably. In my opinion, these residents should be given the status of ‘protected residents,’ including all the legal benefits which this term affords them.” Unfortunately, while the case was still being debated in the Supreme Court, Judge Aviv retired.

A Decent Place to Live

Despite that setback, the residents’ stubborn fight began to bear fruit. Based on the documents Yoni submitted, the Israel Land Authority informed Lifta residents that all the petitions to evacuate them were canceled.

But in 2013, the residents received new evacuation orders, this time issued by the Jerusalem City Council — and the whole saga began again.

“We were furious. The Council tried to soothe us and promised we would be compensated and provided with alternative housing options. And they did send one of their appraisers to decide the value of our homes. But he came up with the ridiculous conclusion that we are entitled to no more than NIS 100,000 to NIS 150,000 ($25,000 to $40,000). What can we do with such a puny amount of money? Where can we find any accommodations for such a ridiculous price? Of course we rejected their offer. So again we received evacuation orders, labeling us ‘squatters.’ We went to court again.”

This time, Judge Aharon Farkash presided over the case. “The judge saw the documents and was shocked,” says Yoni. “He requested to immediately stop labeling us ‘squatters,’ not even to insinuate anything of the sort. He also appointed an appraiser of the Court, who has already begun his work. All we ask for is a decent place to live in after we must abandon our homes.”

Yoni also points out that although Lifta’s residents are few in number, their fight could have ramifications for others in similar situations. “About 300,000 people in Israel may face the same problem. We are talking about tens of thousands of families who live in property that was never legally transferred to them.”

Lives in Limbo

While the plan to build luxury housing in Lifta was eventually nixed by the Jerusalem District Court after former Arab residents brought a legal petition to preserve the village as a historic site, the plan to broaden Highway 1 is still in the works. Therefore, the lives of Lifta’s remaining families are still very much like the proverbial “fiddler on the roof.”

According to Lifta resident Boaz Sando, “No one is willing to invest any money in this place, which, anyway, will soon be here no more.”

Therefore, the path that leads to Sando’s home, which isn’t much different from the other paths in the village, is cracked and broken. Also gone are the lush, green shrubberies that once graced the village; now it’s just dried yellowed thorns..

“Our lives have become on big question mark,” Yoni says. “The village, which once used to be a rare gem, is just going down the drain. We can’t fall asleep at night, as no one knows what the future holds for us.

“It’s heartbreaking to think that our neighborhood will be demolished. There are very warm and loving relationships among the 13 families. We have a strong community and a beautiful life here. It will be extremely painful for us to leave our homes.”

But if Yoni must leave Lifta, which at this point seems very likely, he doesn’t intend to break a promise he made to his mother, who passed away in 2011, that he would make sure his father and brother, who also live in Lifta, would never become homeless.

“After she passed away, I promised myself that until my last breath I will leave no stone unturned in order to prove that we are not ‘illegal squatters.’ The historical facts will vindicate us.”

The Israel Land Authority Responds

Israel Land Authority has replied as follows: In 2008 Israel Land Authority submitted to the court about 15 lawsuits, demanding to evacuate squatters who have been living in property which legally was not theirs, in the village of Lifta, along the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv Highway. In 2014 it became clear that most of the land referred to in the above-mentioned lawsuits was transferred to the Jerusalem Municipality and was under its jurisdiction, for the sake of broadening Highway 1. Consequently, City Council employed its authority, given to it by law, and demanded the evacuation of the land necessary to broaden the highway.

The issue of compensation to the residents of Lifta, as well as the proceedings to evacuate most of them, was thus transferred to the City Council. Israel Land Authority won the cases of three out of the 15 lawsuits which were filed against it. In those three cases the court decided that the plaintiffs had no ownership rights to the homes in which they have resided.

One of the lawsuits was finally heard by the Israel Supreme Court, which came to the same verdict, and demanded issuing an evacuation order for the plaintiff. (The claimants of the two other lawsuits appealed to the Regional Court, where the cases are being tried currently.) It is important to note that the Israel Land Authority was only founded in 1960, and any complaint that involves issues occurring prior it its founding should be referred to the appropriate authorities in charge then. As for the issue of monetary compensation for the Lifta residents, it is now under the jurisdiction of the Jerusalem Municipality.