The world has reached a tipping point on Sheikh Jarrah

These were the events that preceded Israel's current war on Gaza, where airstrikes have killed over 212 people (including children), and injuring around 1500 to date. By framing its attack as a war against Hamas, Israel has managed to conveniently distract attention away from the injustice and forced displacement that initially triggered this latest escalation and from the grievances that lie at its core.

Forced evictions have targeted residents of Sheikh Jarrah and other districts of occupied East Jerusalem for decades. The neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah became home in 1956 to Palestinian refugee families who had been expelled from their homes in what became Israel during the 1948 war. Jordan, which administered East Jerusalem at the time, provided housing to these families and later promised them ownership titles. However, in 1967, Israel captured and occupied East Jerusalem, and these agreements were disregarded. Since then, Israeli settler groups have been routinely successful in petitioning Israeli courts to evict Palestinians on the basis of claims that Jews purchased land in these areas during Ottoman rule in the late 19th century. In contrast, Israeli courts have dismissed Ottoman documents produced by Palestinians that appear to dispute such claims.

Far from anomalous, the evictions in Sheikh Jarrah follow a pattern of forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes in Jerusalem and throughout the Palestinian territories. Israeli law is tilted in support of such a process: Jews are granted the right to reclaim land or property lost in 1948, while Palestinians are denied that same right. According to the UN, in 2020 alone, at least 218 Palestinian households in East Jerusalem were battling eviction lawsuits. The deputy mayor of Jerusalem was recently quoted as stating that these forced evictions form part of a deliberate policy "to secure the future of Jerusalem as a Jewish capital for the Jewish people".

In the midst of this, as calls grow for states to impose sanctions on Israel, Australia is pursuing stronger trade relations with Israel and a possible free trade agreement. It's also acting to shield Israel from scrutiny and accountability.

In May last year, the Australian government intervened in the proceedings of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to attempt to block an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Palestine. When the court ruled against Australia's argument that the ICC did not have jurisdiction over Palestine, Australia's Foreign Minister, Marise Payne, criticised the decision and insisted that such "matters" should be resolved through negotiations alone.

The attempt to undercut an ICC investigation in the face of possible human rights abuses and crimes against humanity constitutes a concerning disregard for the exercise of international law on Australia's part.

Australia is swimming against the tide of international opinion on these issues. Although Palestinians and human rights advocates have been calling attention to policies of repression and discrimination in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories for years, the international community appears to have only recently arrived at a tipping point. Fifty-nine per cent of Middle East scholars surveyed this year characterised the situation in Israel and Palestine as "a one-state reality akin to apartheid". In addition, in recent months, Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem and major international human rights monitoring organisation Human Rights Watch separately declared that Israel has been committing crimes of apartheid. That their reports came at a time of escalating forced evictions, police brutality, and settler rampages in Palestinian neighbourhoods only served to underscore their conclusions.

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For Israel's part, to explain the crisis in Jerusalem the Israeli foreign ministry stated that Palestinians were protesting "in order to incite violence". This claim suggests that thousands were protesting in Jerusalem and around the country purely out of a desire for conflict. That they would risk their lives to do so, given the high incidence of police brutality as well as the coronavirus risk (since Palestinians in the occupied territories are being vaccinated at a much lower rate than Israel's Jewish population), appears to matter little.

Similarly cynical is the Israeli foreign ministry's claim that what's taking place in Sheikh Jarrah constitutes nothing more than a "real estate dispute". International law is unambiguous about the fact that East Jerusalem is occupied Palestinian territory, to which Israel has no legitimate claim. As such, last week the UN's rights office stressed that it remains illegal for Israel to confiscate private property in these areas or engage in population transfer there. Doing so, it has said, "may amount to war crimes". This, of course, also pertains to all the Israeli settlements built throughout the Palestinian territories. It remains the case regardless of what Israel's own courts rule on the matter. Moreover, use of the term "real estate dispute" knowingly invokes common myths about what's happening in Israel and Palestine - specifically that it's an overly complex disagreement between two equally culpable and equally matched sides, best solved by some form of high-level diplomacy.

Australia and the international community are long past the point of being able to credibly cling to this false pretence. Doing so only harms Israelis and Palestinians by forestalling a sustainable and just resolution.