All over the world houses built without permits are dismantled.  Only when it happens in Israel or the adjacent disputed territories does it make the front-page news in a major American newspaper: the Washington Post.  Unnamed Palestinians are paraphrased attempting to explain why their illegally built homes should stay.  Although offering no proof, they claim they have been there “since the Ottoman Empire” (which ended in 1917).

Living on a property is not the same as owning it.  But if that’s the game the Palestinians want to play, it works both ways.

The Washington Post identifies the true origin of ownership in this case, although the conclusion is not consistent with the overall direction of the article.  The land where the Palestinians are squatting is actually “adjacent to an important archaeological site with ruins of a Jewish community and a synagogue dating to the 8th century.”  The Post concludes, “The same site also has remains of an ancient mosque, built on top of the synagogue.”  Looks as if the past is indeed prologue!  The buried structures reveal which population arrived first.

Lastly, the Post repeats the tired canard that Israel is “ethnic cleansing” or trying to “depopulate the area of Arabs.”  The paper quotes what might seem like an unbiased source: Nasser Nawaja, who is employed by the self-described Israeli “human rights” group B’Tselem.  These so-called human rights groups are stumped by a basic question: if Israel is indeed engaged in ethnic cleansing, why has the population of Arabs in the West Bank increased multifold since Israel captured the land from Jordan after being attacked by it in 1967?