[News] Israel orders wife of Palestinian jailed for Facebook comments expelled from Jerusalem

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Israel orders wife of Palestinian jailed for Facebook comments
  expelled from Jerusalem

Submitted by Patrick Strickland on Mon, 05/25/2015
*http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/patrick-strickland/israel-orders-wife-palestinian-jailed-facebook-comments-expelled-jerusalem*

Israeli occupation authorities delivered an order to Muna Shalabi, the 
wife of a recently sentenced Palestinian prisoner, informing her that 
they intend to expel her from her hometown of Jerusalem 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/east-jerusalem> for “security reasons.”

Shalabi, 43, is from the Sawaneh neighborhood of occupied East 
Jerusalem, and was informed by Israel’s interior ministry that she must 
leave the city for an unspecified amount of time, according to the 
publication /Arab48/ <http://www.arab48.com/?mod=articles&ID=1158529>.

Shalabi’s husband Omar, 44, was earlier this month sentenced to nine 
months in an Israeli prison after an Israeli court found him guilty of 
“supporting terrorism” and “incitement” for comments he wrote on 
Facebook last December.

Omar, the former secretary of Jerusalem’s branch of the Fatah 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/fatah> political party, was one of 
eight Palestinians from the city arrested in December for Facebook comments.

The court cited “statuses” and comments he wrote in support of armed 
activities against Israelis following the kidnapping and murder of 
17-year-old Muhammad Abu Khudair 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/muhammad-abu-khudair> by Israeli 
settlers last July, according 
<http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.657173> to the Israeli 
daily /Haaretz <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/haaretz>/.

Sami Deis, a 27-year-old Palestinian Jerusalemite who was arrested at 
the same time as Shalabi, was sentenced to eight months in prison for 
similar charges relating to a Facebook page – titled “Death to Israel” – 
that he created and administered.


    *“Worry and fear” *

With Omar in prison, Muna is the sole parent taking care of their six 
children, who are aged 7-22 years old, /Arab48/ adds.

Held in Gilboa prison in northern present-day Israel, Omar is one of an 
estimated 5,820 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli lockup, 
according <http://www.addameer.org> to the Ramallah-based prisoner 
support group Addameer <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/addameer>.

The order does not specify the “security threat” that his wife poses 
— she has not been accused of any crime — by remaining in their family’s 
home. Although Israel’s interior ministry claims that it gave her 21 
days to appeal the order, Shalabi denies that she was given any such 
opportunity.

Since receiving the order, Muna and her children have lived in “a 
situation of worry and fear” and she “appeals to relevant human rights 
and legal institutions and the international community for quick 
intervention… to stop Israel’s ethnic cleansing policies against 
Jerusalemites and [Palestinians’] presence in Jerusalem,” /Arab48/ reports.

Israel’s practice of banning Palestinians from Jerusalem is nothing new.

In December 2014, five Palestinian activists from Jerusalem were banned 
from the city. Among them was Daoud al-Ghoul 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/daoud-al-ghoul>, a 31-year-old 
activist and tour guide.

Six days after receiving the original banning order, al-Ghoul received a 
military court decree in Ramallah 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/ramallah>, where he had relocated, 
banning him from the occupied West Bank 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/west-bank> in its entirety, as The 
Electronic Intifada reported 
<http://electronicintifada.net/content/tour-guide-political-activist-banned-his-native-jerusalem/14112> 
at the time.

Al-Ghoul has since lived in Haifa 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/haifa>, a coastal city in central 
present-day Israel, and is unable to continue his work as a tour guide 
for the time being.


    *Residency revoked*

More than 300,000 Palestinians live in neighborhoods throughout East 
Jerusalem, where they regularly endure harassment and violence by 
Israeli occupation forces and settlers 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/settler-violence> alike. 
Palestinians native to the city are treated by Israeli occupation 
authorities as if they, not Israel which occupied the city in 1967, are 
the newcomers.

Banning Palestinians from the city is just one of several methods Israel 
employs to expedite the ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem and push the 
indigenous population out. Israel also regularly demolishes Palestinian 
homes in the city and revokes 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/jerusalem-residency> Palestinians’ 
residency status 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/revocation-residency-rights>.

Since Israel’s military occupation of the city in 1967, at least 14,416 
Palestinians have had their residency revoked, according 
<http://www.hamoked.org/Document.aspx?dID=Updates1483> to the Israeli 
rights group Hamoked <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/hamoked>. In 
2014 alone, Israel revoked the residency of 107 Palestinians from East 
Jerusalem, among them 56 women and 14 children.

These revocations have a much greater impact than on the individual 
targeted, as they often split married couples from each other and 
parents from children. Families are left with the prosepct of leaving 
the city en masse in order to stay together.

Thousands of children living in East Jerusalem do not carry residency 
papers and are thus denied access to healthcare, education and other 
basic services, as The Electronic Intifada has reported 
<http://electronicintifada.net/content/thousands-jerusalem-children-denied-basic-services-israeli-apartheid/13043> 
in the past.

In November 2014, Israel’s interior ministry revoked the residency 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/11/israel-strips-attacker-widow-residency-20141126185411270174.html> 
of Nadia Abu Jamal, the wife of a Palestinian who was killed while 
attacking Israeli worshippers in a Jerusalem synagogue. That attack 
resulted in the deaths of five Israelis.

The decision came amid a harsh crackdown by Israeli occupation 
authorities 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/11/east-jerusalem-under-collective-punishment-2014111682924491709.html> 
on Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

“The formal phrase ‘permanent residency’ is misleading,” the Israeli 
human rights group B’Tselem <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/btselem> 
observed in a press release 
<http://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20141123_revocation_of_residency> 
following Abu Jamal’s residency status being revoked.

“This status is far from permanent, as evinced by the recent revocation 
and by thousands of previous cases of revocation,” the group continued. 
“The only permanent thing about this status is its temporary nature and 
instability.”

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