Jaffa’s fortunes have changed dramatically since early last century. Back then the city was the commercial hub of Palestine, famously exporting its orange crop around the world. Then in 1948, during Israel’s founding, most of the town’s Palestinians were ethnically cleansed – either expelled or forced to flee. The few remaining inhabitants were confined to Jaffa’s Ajami district.
Today Jaffa has become the battleground for yet another attempted takeover, this time by extremist religious Jews, similar to those who have created hundreds of settlements in the illegally occupied West Bank. Small numbers of nationalist religious Jews, distinctive for wearing knitted skullcaps, have begun moving into Jaffa’s impoverished Arab district of Ajami over recent months.
Tensions have simmered since a seminary was established last year in the heart of Ajami for young Jewish men who combine study of the Bible with serving in the Israeli army. Many such seminaries, known as "hesder yeshivas", are located in the occupied territories and have earned a reputation for turning out extremists.
Last week Ajami’s Arab residents were dealt a further blow. An Israeli court approved the sale of one of the district’s few remaining building plots to B’Emuna (Hebrew for "with faith"), a construction company that specializes in building subsidized homes for religious families, many of them in illegal West Bank settlements.
The Association of Civil Rights, Israel’s largest human rights law centre, has opposed the decision, calling the company’s policy "racist".
The latest arrivals in Ajami are causing plenty of anxiety. Gilad Peleg, head of Israel’s Jaffa Development Authority, said he was deeply concerned at the trend of extremist Jewish organizations arriving "to shake up the local community".
Kemal Agbaria, who chairs the Ajami neighborhood council, said residents would launch an appeal to the Supreme Court and were planning large-scale demonstrations to draw attention to their plight.
Adapted from "Arabs of Jaffa face settlers as neighbours", written by Jonathan Cook and printed in the Atlanta Free Press on Feb. 21, 2010. See: http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/news/1-/12762-arabs-of-jaffa-face-settl...