Targeting the ‘Undesirables,' From Jerusalem to Atlanta

Read Online at Open Door's Website North of the Old City of Jerusalem there is a Palestinian neighborhood called Sheikh Jarrah. Should you find yourself there on a Friday, you will hear the beating of drums and shouts of protest. Should you continue walking, you’ll come across a large brown house that for 53 years served as the al-Ghawi family’s home.

The tragedy and travesty of Sheikh JarrahThe al-Ghawi family no longer lives in that house. Along with the Hannoun family, all 27 of them were removed by order of the court and their homes turned over to Israeli settlers. Now, the evicted al-Ghawi and Hannoun families live just outside in a small green tent, a place where they have firmly planted themselves as an act of resistance to the Israeli empire.

In March 2010, I sat outside that tent and listened to Nadia Hannoun’s words: “They damage our life. They damage our dream. They damage our children.”She went on to describe the nightmares her daughter was having. I sat behind my camera lens, shaking, unsure how to proceed. She continued:“We need our homes, and we need our rights.”

My friend and I finished the interview and began making our way back to his flat in Beit Sahour. We were returning to a house, and soon, I would be flying to my home. My white privilege was never more evident.

The methodical theft of Palestinian land. As I’ve continued to follow the lives of the Hannoun and al-Ghawi families, I’ve been most struck by the methodical and systematic theft of Palestinian land. Israeli settlements continue to invade Palestinian land. Plans are now under way in Sheikh Jarrah to construct a settlement. If completed, Shimon HaTzadik would consist of 200 housing units and displace 500 residents. Completion of this site would mean the encirclement of Jerusalem by Jewish land and quite possibly squash all hope of shared life in this area.

Sheikh Jarrah stands at the end of a long and ongoing attempt to marginalize and evacuate a very particular group of people from their homes.

It would be a while longer before I understood all the ways that my encounters in Sheikh Jarrah had left me so radically altered. They’ve provided for me a lens with which to view my life within the Open Door Community. What I’m learning is that Nadia Hannoun fell victim to a larger Israeli aim: clearing East Jerusalem of the “undesirables.” And, although it’s unclear whether the city of Atlanta took its cue from the state of Israel or Christopher Columbus, it’s a tactic that it has gotten quite good at.

I remember very early in my time at the Open Door a conversation with Partner Nelia Kimbrough in which she discussed Atlanta’s “10-year plan to end homelessness,” implemented in 2003. She said that she quickly learned that this plan to “end homelessness” merely meant getting rid of homeless people.

Take, for example, the spikes in arrests of the homeless surrounding the 1995 World Series, the 1996 Olympic Games, one of the many Billy Graham crusades, and the computer trade shows. From May 1995 to May 1996, there were a reported 9,000 arrests of the homeless, a rate four times higher than in preceding years.

Before the Olympics, Atlanta initiated “Project Homeward Bound,” footing the bill for one-way bus tickets out of the city. In order to qualify, the homeless man or woman had to sign a statement promising never to return. The director of the program explained that its aim was to keep homeless people from “continuing to be a drain on the social service agencies in Fulton County.”

Panhandling ordinancesOr more recently, you could look at Atlanta’s panhandling ordinances, which, in addition to making it illegal to “monetarily solicit someone who is within 15 feet of a building entrance or exit,” include an obscenely vague regulation of “any statement, gesture or other communication which a reasonable person … would perceive to be a threat.” First-time convictions warrant 30 days of community service, with 30 days of jail time for additional offenses. City Councilman Michael Julian Bond declared that such legislation “protects our citizens from those wolves who … cloak themselves in sheep’s clothing.”

Additionally, Atlanta has recently conducted a city-wide survey aimed at creating the first name-by-name registry of our homeless brothers and sisters in the city. In exchange for McDonald’s gift cards, they were asked, among other things for their age, length of time on the streets, and health status, allowing the city to make a list of the “chronically homeless,” not to mention police records complete with photographs. And, while the city claims that the survey is meant to “help people get housing,” we at the Open Door have heard the city of Atlanta cry wolf one too many times.

More and more often, I think of Nadia Hannoun, perched on the street corner in front of her family’s tent. I think about how desperately the state of Israel has tried to remove her from the land she so desperately loves. But then, ever so subtly, I hear the drumbeat, the sound of chanting, and the cries of resistance. Praise God for drums, and may the people of Atlanta learn to chant.

Zachary Crow is a Resident Volunteer at the Open Door Community.