What’s The Story? Ali Qleibo on the United States embassy stealing his family’s land

In 2018, the Trump Administration relocated the US embassy from Tel Aviv to West Jerusalem. This action reversed nearly 75 years of U.S. policy and defied a nearly universal international consensus against recognizing Israeli sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem.

The Biden administration has maintained the Trump policy, and in February 2021 renewed previously shelved plans to build a new U.S. embassy on a valuable parcel of West Jerusalem land. This land, which Israel illegally seized using its 1950 Absentee Property Law, belongs to several prominent Palestinian families in Jerusalem who are now no longer able to occupy or even visit their property.

Ali Qleibo is a Palestinian anthropologist, researcher and artist from Jerusalem and is a descendant of the owners of the land. In this video Qleibo relates the history of this parcel, the issue of seized Palestinian property in Jerusalem more broadly, and his demand that the United States not build its new embassy on his family’s land.

As told to producer/director Ghousoon Bisharat and cinematographer/editor Thomas Dallal.

Shu al-Qusa/What’s the Story is a video series by Ghousoon Bisharat and Thomas Dallal that illuminates Palestinian life and politics through intimate first person interviews with Palestinians. View the series here.