Sheikh Jarrah Issue in the Context of the Palestinian Resistance against the Israeli Occupation: A Game Changer

Abstract

The dynamics of the Palestinian issue have been characterised by the domination of the paradigm of the settler colonialism in which the state of Israel has been exercising unjust policies against the Palestinians. The Jewish state whose borders have not yet been established, wants to build more settlements at the expense of the Palestinians who are viewed as a demographic threat. While the Nakba of 1948 is associated with the dispossession of over 500,000 Palestinians, it is difficult to say that it is limited to that year. The Israeli government’s decision to expel the Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood from the homes they had lived in for decades resurrected the image of the never-ending Nakba. This paper attempts to answer the question of how the potential dispossession of the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood impacted the dynamics of the Palestinian issue by shedding light on Sheikh Jarrah case’s developments including its origins, Israel’s ethnic cleansing policies, the Palestinians’ steadfastness and the international formal and informal responses.