How US activists are infiltrating Israeli events selling Palestinian land

This article How US activists are infiltrating Israeli events selling Palestinian land was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Outside of a synagogue in West Orange, New Jersey, a hundred people with PAL-Awda NY/NJ, a local Palestinian rights organization, gathered to protest an Israeli real estate event taking place there on Nov. 13. The protesters accused the realtors from My Israel Home, an Israeli real estate company based outside of Jerusalem, of marketing Palestinian land. They also said that the company was discriminating against event attendees by religion, effectively excluding everyone except especially religious Jews. According to PAL-Awda, the protesters were attacked by counter-protesters, including an organizer of the event, armed with pepper-spray and tactical flashlights wielded as bludgeons.

While the confrontation unfolded outside Congregation Ohr Torah, a protester going by the name “Riley” made their way inside. (The identities of Riley and other event attendees mentioned in this story have been obscured to protect them from any potential retaliation.) In order to register, Riley provided My Israel Home with the name of their synagogue and how they had heard of the event. According to Riley, they were questioned at the door by private security about their synagogue once again, plus their social media accounts, political beliefs and professional background.

After being frisked, Riley says they were allowed to attend the event — and able to document My Israel Home realtors advertising properties in Giv’at Ha-Matos, which is categorized as an Israeli settlement in the West Bank by the United Nations. According to the International Court of Justice, Giv’at Ha-Matos and the 300 other Israeli settlements in the West Bank are all illegal encroachments upon Palestinian land.

“Not only were the properties reserved for Jews only, the realtors were specifically targeting Jewish people in the tri-state area,” Riley said. “That was the focus.”

Israeli real estate companies have recently held more than two dozen similar events across the United States and Canada, marketing property on Palestinian land and discriminating against attendees, according to activists like Riley. In response, activists have been infiltrating the events to document violations of international and domestic laws, which they hope will help stem Israel’s ongoing annexation of Palestine.

Infiltrating the events

Since March, Israeli real estate companies have held more than 27 events like the one at Congregation Ohr Torah, according to Greg, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, or JVP, which has organized protests against them. The locations span Toronto to Baltimore, Long Island to Los Angeles, and have been put on by at least five different companies. In addition to My Israel Home, others involved include CapitIL, Home in Israel, My Home in Israel and YYK Jerusalem. The properties marketed by the various companies range from apartments in southern Israel for $435,000 to homes in the illegal Israeli settlement of Efrat in the West Bank for more than $2.9 million. (None of the aforementioned Israeli companies responded to multiple requests for comment.)

For Jewish activists like those with JVP, the fact that many are hosted at synagogues like Congregation Ohr Torah is especially objectionable.

“We were horrified to learn of the proliferation of real estate fairs to sell property in the occupied West Bank to North American Jews,” JVP Executive Director Stefanie Fox said. “These events advance ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and are in violation of international law. It is an insult to the Jewish tradition that synagogues around the country would host such events. These are supposed to be our holy spaces and instead they are collaborating in the destruction and displacement of Palestinians.”

According to activists who have attended, or attempted to attend, the events, all of the Israeli real estate companies explicitly required them to answer questions regarding their religious affiliation, without which they would either not receive further details or would be stopped at the door. Greg received a call from a CapitIL agent after registering online for one of the company’s events.

“He asked me where I daven [pray], who the rabbi is there and for the rabbi’s number — seeming incredulous that I wouldn’t just have the rabbi’s number stored in my phone,” Greg explained. “He said he would check on me with the rabbi and asked if the rabbi would know who I was. I said probably not because I don’t go to shul [synagogue] that much.”

Greg did not receive any further information about the CapitIL event, effectively preventing them from attending.

Another JVP member, Parker, successfully registered for an event by Home in Israel, which also asked registrants for the names of their synagogues and rabbis, but they were nevertheless stopped at the door by security. According to Parker, they were on the guestlist, but security claimed that a background check had found anti-Israeli posts on their Instagram account — despite Parker’s account being private. Jay, another JVP member who attended the same event, believes Parker was actually stopped at the door because of their age, as they appeared too young to buy property.

Two other JVP members, Alex and Jess, were able to successfully register for and attend a My Home in Israel event. According to the activists, the online registration process included providing information about their synagogues, and they witnessed another attendee being turned away from the event for apparently failing to register.

In addition to occasionally frustrating activists’ attempts to document violations of international law at these Israeli real estate events, the registration processes themselves may run afoul of domestic laws against discrimination in housing. Realtors cannot discriminate in the marketing of property to prospective buyers, according to Dina Chehata, an attorney with the Council on American-Islamic Relations of Greater Los Angeles, a public advocacy organization for Muslims in the United States. They are planning on filing complaints against My Home in Israel with housing authorities in California over two events held there.

“We have strong policies that really look down on discriminating against somebody in real estate and in the sale of land based on their protected characteristics — national origin being one, religion being another,” Chehata said. “So we would like to appeal to state agencies to say that it’s against our public policy in the state of California, and the United States generally, to have companies that are selling to American citizens in a way that discriminates against their protected characteristics.”

Bring the law to bear

Of course the most pressing violations of law at these Israeli real estate events concern Israel’s ongoing annexation of Palestine. According to activists with both JVP and PAL-Awda, at least four of the Israeli real estate companies that have recently held events in the United States and Canada — CapitIL, My Home in Israel, My Israel Home and YYK — market properties in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Activists’ infiltration of the events have allowed them to document such violations, which in turn provides legal advocates with the evidence necessary to file complaints.

According to Leena Widdi, spokesperson for PAL-Awda, legal complaints are one facet of the multi-pronged approach to opposing Zionism, or Jewish ethno-nationalism, which motivates the Israeli annexation of Palestine.

“We do research, compiling and organizing documentation for legal action,” Widdi said. “We also organize protests when ‘Stolen Land’ events are discovered to confront, publicize and challenge these illegal events. We are continuing to broaden our campaign against the event organizers, their financial supporters and the Zionists and politicians who provide them political cover.”

In March, PAL-Awda assisted the Palestinian Assembly for Liberation Law Commission, another Palestinian rights organization, in filing complaints against My Home in Israel with the attorneys general and other authorities in New Jersey and New York regarding real estate events in each state. Although the New Jersey Civil Rights Division, which enforces local fair housing laws, does not comment on ongoing investigations, PAL Law’s complaint appears to have triggered an investigation into My Home in Israel in New Jersey. The division issued a letter to My Home in Israel, requesting further information about a company event on March 10 at the Congregation Keter Torah synagogue in Teaneck, New Jersey.

In some instances, the combined efforts of protesters and legal advocates have successfully prevented Israeli real estate events from taking place at all. Following calls by PAL-Awda to protest an event by My Home in Israel in Brooklyn, New York, on March 13 and PAL Law’s complaint to authorities in New York, the Israeli realtors cancelled the event. Pressure from protesters and legal advocates has also pushed Israeli realtors to move other events to new venues or hold them online, rather than in person.

While it remains unclear if or when the investigation into My Home in Israel will proceed in New Jersey, activists say they will continue working to ensure that international and domestic laws are enforced to end the marketing of Palestinian land by Israeli realtors, as well as the ongoing Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip and Israeli occupation of Palestine in general.

According to Riley, who infiltrated the event at Congregation Ohr Torah, ongoing demonstrations are necessary, but other forms of pressure need to be brought to bear on Israeli realtors who seek to benefit from the illegal annexation of Palestinian land.

“They don’t care about anyone shouting ‘Free Palestine’ — they laugh in the face of that,” Riley said. “Things that can provide even the slightest bit of material pressure are better than just the mass demonstrations. And I felt like I was in a position where I could do this.”

This article How US activists are infiltrating Israeli events selling Palestinian land was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

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Source: https://wagingnonviolence.org/2025/01/activists-infiltrate-israeli-events-selling-palestinian-land-in-us/