My name is Yara and I come from Palestine and I came here to study at Leiden University. I study political science and this is my third year. I came here today to show solidarity with my people. And I especially wanted to come here to give Palestine a narrative and platform. Finally, because in my opinion, the Western media is not doing a great job at portraying the actual events that are happening (chronologically as well). There is a lot of misinformation and this is not only misinformation but also framing. The Palestinian narrative should be heard. And this is why I think it's very important that we always report like this, that we directly tell people here what's going on because the media is not doing the best it could. So if I want to put this into small words, I'm saying that this protest is basically here to do what the media is not doing.
First of all, I talked about Sheikh Jarrah before because it's a very important issue because it portrays the whole story of what happened in Palestine for 73 years. And it's technically illegal, because East Jerusalem is, and the West Bank is technically under every law, occupied territories of Palestinians, and Israel should not have any legitimacy to kick anyone out. However, they're doing this with forged papers, with fake claims. They're submitting papers to the court. Even one of their lawyers came out and said that those papers were fake. You want to evict me from my house, which I've been living here for 50 years? Because you claim that you had bought this land centuries ago? No, I'm sorry, this should not be legal. And the Israeli court does not see this, the Israeli court is not an unbiased force. This court was systematically built to discriminate against Palestinians, and dehumanize them, and to abolish the Palestinian identity in Jerusalem. This is very important for the zionist project to abolish any existence of Palestinians so that they can go on and say, Oh, this land, no one was here and this land was for no one. And now this land is for the people who have no land. But this is not true. We were here, we could actually live side by side if there wasn't any humiliation if we were equal in rights, equal in dignity and equal in everything. But unfortunately, this is not happening in Sheikh Jarrah these people, they were promised by the UNRWA and the Jordanian government to transfer the ownership of these houses to them, but because of bureaucratic procrastination, and because in 67, Israel has already occupied Eastern Jerusalem. So Jordan and the owner will couldn't transfer legally, the ownership to these people. But what is happening there is not because people did not pay the rent for 40 years. No, these people own this house. And this is their right because they were displaced for the first time in 48, these people weren't in Jerusalem before these people were in different cities. And they got this place, they became refugees, they came to Jerusalem to find a house, and the UNRWA and the UN gave them a house. Now after all these years, Israel is coming to take them? No, this should not be acceptable. And we're here today to say, to say that this happens to every other city, every other town, every other, every other village, all these oldest lands were taken forcefully from the Palestinians. And also sometimes were taken by the court itself worth where they just submit fake papers. And then when they go out, and they Oh, this is a legal dispute. No, this is not a legal dispute. This is not even a conflict. This is ethnic cleansing because they want to abolish an identity, a whole identity of people. They just want to abolish it. And this is how they do it. Palestinians in East Jerusalem, when they go to court, they have to go to a military court. But the settler, the Israeli settler that is living right next to them, goes to a civilian court. Now, this court is not a normal court. This is not a legal, legal dispute. This is literally ethnic cleansing and apartheid. So this is our message today and because the media here is not portraying the full truth, it is not portraying the story. And they only start talking about the issue when it suits their own agenda. Interview of Jara Nazer conducted by Aobh Bodewig